Arena Update Coming! Downtime planned for May 8th!

[Anacybele]

Yeah, I just saw this in my game. The maintenance period will be 12AM to 2:30 AM US eastern time on the 8th. It says it'll provide a new update to the arena, but doesn't give anymore details.

What do you guys think will change this time? I'm kind of hoping for something relating whether you're mainly using a physical team or a magic one. Like, if you use a team of all physical attackers like I tend to do, you'll be matched up against another team like that (note, it would not necessarily have all physical units, it could have one mage). And if you use a magic one, you'll face other magic wielders. If your team is half and half, then you'll face other half and half teams.

I never got great magic wielders other than male Robin (and maybe female Robin), who have lower res than def, plus I pulled a lot of low res and -res units in general, so sometimes I get screwed in the arena by a team that has three mages and dragons or something.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Anacybele

[shadowofchaos]

10 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

What do you guys think will change this time? I'm kind of hoping for something relating whether you're mainly using a physical team or a magic one. Like, if you use a team of all physical attackers like I tend to do, you'll be matched up against another team like that (note, it would not necessarily have all physical units, it could have one mage). And if you use a magic one, you'll face other magic wielders. If your team is half and half, then you'll face other half and half teams.

They said what changes were coming. The tier orbs and feathers, and terrains.

The physical vs physical and magic vs magic would literally kill the point of setting up teams with specific characters.

Dagger users are primarily high res, low physical atk, debuff mage killers. Felicia can really only kill a physical unit with charged Glacies or whittling down with poison strike.

That's a design disaster.

 

Edited May 1, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Anacybele]

8 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

They said what changes were coming. The tier orbs and feathers, and terrains.

The physical vs physical and magic vs magic would literally kill the point of setting up teams with specific characters.

Dagger users are primarily high res, low physical atk, debuff mage killers. Felicia can really only kill a physical unit with charged Glacies or whittling down with poison strike.

That's a design disaster.

 

Must've somehow missed whatever changes they listed when I read it.

And no it wouldn't. Like I said, it wouldn't always be entirely physical vs physical. It could also be an all physical team vs a team with three physical and one mage or an all magic team against three magic users and one physical. Things along the lines of that. And also, how about this include taking def and res stats into account since you do make a good point about dagger users. If your team is mostly or all low res units, you won't face many mages, but if it's all or mostly low def, you'll face more magic instead.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Anacybele

[Othin]

Arena teams are expected to be able to handle any type of team. They're not going to limit the matchups so you only have to fight teams you can do well against and can ignore the rest. That'd be way too complicated and be underwhelming for people who are already satisfied with the arena's difficulty level.

Arena updates are not likely to do much to make it easier or harder for anyone in particular. Changing difficulty isn't the goal; adding features is.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Othin

[MaskedAmpharos]

I posted this in general discussion too, but the livestream a few days back already told everyone what the Arena update is going to be.

1) They'll be adding in new maps, which include new features such as forts that decrease damage taken from units standing on them

2) They'll be making Arena tiers more competitive, with people now going up or even dropping down tiers every week based on how well they do. The higher your tier is, the more orbs you get every week as a reward.

Also, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to agree with everyone else here. I don't think it makes any sense to have matchmaking take physical/magical or melee/ranged team comps into account, and it would severely undermine the balance of the game as is. 

The point of an Arena team is to be able to handle all combinations of enemy teams (or at least as many as possible), and a well-balanced offense team should have little to no weaknesses. 

Not to mention knowing what kind of team you'll be facing primarily, whether it be knowing it's mainly physical/magical damage or mainly melee/ranged, would completely shake up the meta because everyone would be forced into using specific characters or not using others. 

For example: Ike's usefulness as a unit with ranged counter would be severely diminished if there were fewer ranged/magic characters to go up against. If they did a physical/magical split, then physical units that are meant to tank magical hits, such as Felicia, Niles, and Titania, would be at a severe disadvantage because they lose their niche. If there is a melee/ranged split, then manaketes will be at an even greater advantage because most melee units have weak resistance. Nowi in particular would be unstoppable since she can already destroy Falchion units with Triangle Adept and Swordbreaker. If her main counter, Julia (but also other green mages like Nino) is no longer matched up against her, she'll be a lot more broken than she is now.

I could go on for a while about this, but the main point is that, like all the other players above me, I don't think it makes sense to split Arena matchmaking as you suggested. 

[MrSmokestack]

50 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

 It says it'll provide a new update to the arena, but doesn't give anymore details.

What do you guys think will change this time? I'm kind of hoping for something relating whether you're mainly using a physical team or a magic one. Like, if you use a team of all physical attackers like I tend to do, you'll be matched up against another team like that (note, it would not necessarily have all physical units, it could have one mage). And if you use a magic one, you'll face other magic wielders. If your team is half and half, then you'll face other half and half teams.

I never got great magic wielders other than male Robin (and maybe female Robin), who have lower res than def, plus I pulled a lot of low res and -res units in general, so sometimes I get screwed in the arena by a team that has three mages and dragons or something.

Parroting what everyone else is saying here:

1) Livestream a few days back told us what to expect from the new update--orb rewards, new maps, etc.

2) How would this change even be implemented? The whole point of running mages and physical units is to  balance out the high Def / low Res opponents you face, and vice-versa. It really doesn't do anything other than make both Arena offenses and defenses harder

Edited May 1, 2017 by MrSmokestack

[Ice Dragon]

49 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

2) They'll be making Arena tiers more competitive, with people now going up or even dropping down tiers every week based on how well they do. The higher your tier is, the more orbs you get every week as a reward.

I remember orb rewards for reaching each tier for the first time, but I don't remember anything about orb rewards every week.

I remember them saying you'll receive more feathers for being in a higher tier, though.

[MaskedAmpharos]

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I remember orb rewards for reaching each tier for the first time, but I don't remember anything about orb rewards every week.

I remember them saying you'll receive more feathers for being in a higher tier, though.

Ah okay, well since you can actually speak Japanese, I'll take your word for it.

Either way, we'll find out in a week though (I'm still going to hold out hope for it being every week though). 

[Xaos Steel Wing]

I'm interested to see how exactly Tiers will work. We know you can move up or down, and you get more rewards for higher tiers... but anything beyond that is speculation.

The Tier label was previously meaningless (well, it showed how many weeks you've been playing the game) so it's nice to see that field will now have some value.

New maps will be nice too, playing for 3 months on the same few maps was starting to get old.

[Anacybele]

5 hours ago, Othin said:

Arena teams are expected to be able to handle any type of team. They're not going to limit the matchups so you only have to fight teams you can do well against and can ignore the rest. That'd be way too complicated and be underwhelming for people who are already satisfied with the arena's difficulty level.

Arena updates are not likely to do much to make it easier or harder for anyone in particular. Changing difficulty isn't the goal; adding features is.

It's impossible for one team to cover everything though. Several people here say they get screwed by cavalry teams, for example.

[Clogon]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Several people here say they get screwed by cavalry teams, for example.

This is because not everyone has access to the same units.

There are teams that can deal with everything. But players don't have the resources to make them.

[a bear]

And new options come as people obtain more characters. Also even a "do everything" team will still run into challenging fights because doing everything doesn't mean crushing everything.

[Anacybele]

53 minutes ago, Clogon said:

This is because not everyone has access to the same units.

There are teams that can deal with everything. But players don't have the resources to make them.

And yeah, this too. Not all of us have the same resources.

[Othin]

I'm not saying it's feasible to make a team that will do well against everything, but it's important to be accounting for all the possible matchups rather than being automatically paired away from bad ones. Especially since it's possible to use the match screen to avoid some really bad ones at a cost: it's worked well for me for avoiding cavalry teams.

[MaskedAmpharos]

2 hours ago, Anacybele said:

It's impossible for one team to cover everything though. Several people here say they get screwed by cavalry teams, for example.

Perhaps, but it is entirely possible for one team to cover most things. 

Player skill is overall more important than team composition though as it doesn't make a difference what units you have if you don't utilize them to their full potential. Likewise, there are many scenarios where a team that at first glance wouldn't stand a chance against another can actually end up winning if you play smart. 

Mkv's Lunatic GHB clears using only 3* free units is a pretty good example of this. 

There were a few Lunatic GHBs, like the Ursula one, that gave me trouble even when I was using a full team of 5* units. On the other hand, Mkv was able to clear it with only 3* free units. I'm fairly certain that if most people were given the exact same units, they wouldn't have been able to clear the map. I certainly wouldn't have.

Anyways, the point of all this is that while it's certainly difficult for one team to cover everything, it's very feasible to create a team that can very consistently get 7 deathless wins on Advanced with limited F2P resources. 

[Anacybele]

3 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Perhaps, but it is entirely possible for one team to cover most things. 

Player skill is overall more important than team composition though as it doesn't make a difference what units you have if you don't utilize them to their full potential. Likewise, there are many scenarios where a team that at first glance wouldn't stand a chance against another can actually end up winning if you play smart. 

Mkv's Lunatic GHB clears using only 3* free units is a pretty good example of this. 

There were a few Lunatic GHBs, like the Ursula one, that gave me trouble even when I was using a full team of 5* units. On the other hand, Mkv was able to clear it with only 3* free units. I'm fairly certain that if most people were given the exact same units, they wouldn't have been able to clear the map. I certainly wouldn't have.

Anyways, the point of all this is that while it's certainly difficult for one team to cover everything, it's very feasible to create a team that can very consistently get 7 deathless wins on Advanced with limited F2P resources. 

Some of us don't have much player skill either though. I sure don't seem to and it doesn't seem like I can ever be as good as people like Mkv.

I'm sure it is possible to make a team that can consistently get 7 deathless wins, but not on advanced. Others have even told me that not many people can do that one.

[shadowofchaos]

6 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Anyways, the point of all this is that while it's certainly difficult for one team to cover everything, it's very feasible to create a team that can very consistently get 7 deathless wins on Advanced with limited F2P resources. 

There's also the part about having to guts to pick Intermediate or Beginner if you don't want to give up the losing streak.

Or hell, you know... pick Intermediate to have a decent score. I know plenty of people who aren't competitive.

Advanced is GIT GUD mode.

It's like asking to dumb down Lunatic mode for the GHB or the vanilla games.

Don't pick Advanced in that case, Ana.

When you do, you should have the expectation of an uphill battle.

Edited May 2, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[Arcanite]

2 minutes ago, shadowofchaos said:

When you do, you should have the expectation of an uphill battle.

I mean, when I pick advanced I just send in Nino and say GG

Anywho, I'm excited for this new update. Ready for some MOAR orbs. Probably gonna save for the banner after this one, since I've gotten something good from the 2 current focuses

[TheTuckingFypo]

8 hours ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

Ah okay, well since you can actually speak Japanese, I'll take your word for it.

Either way, we'll find out in a week though (I'm still going to hold out hope for it being every week though). 

Wait, @Ice Dragon speaks Japanese? Dude! That's so chill! You gotta brush me up on some grammar sometime!

1 hour ago, Arcanite said:

I mean, when I pick advanced I just send in Nino and say GG

Anywho, I'm excited for this new update. Ready for some MOAR orbs. Probably gonna save for the banner after this one, since I've gotten something good from the 2 current focuses

More orbs? Sweet. (I pulled a 5* Raven today, Arcie.)

[Xaos Steel Wing]

3 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Some of us don't have much player skill either though. I sure don't seem to and it doesn't seem like I can ever be as good as people like Mkv.

I'm sure it is possible to make a team that can consistently get 7 deathless wins, but not on advanced. Others have even told me that not many people can do that one.

Isn't the whole point of Arena to compare your score versus that of others? It's somewhat of a competitive multiplayer high score mode. If you want to rank highly in Arena, you need to get 7 deathless wins on advanced with four level 40 units.

Arena shouldn't be about leveling the playing field, it should reward those who play better, it's the closest thing this game has to "competetive" multiplayer.

It's about making the best possible team you can with the units you have that can deal with any possible enemy team that you might have to fight against. Team composition should be factor, it's part of your strategy, not just how you battle but what you bring into battle.

There's definitely a level of pay2win; players with merged units will get a higher score given an equal skill level. So it's not totally about player skill past a certain point. Unit stats do matter. Once you go 7 wins deathless, stats decide. But you still need to get that deathless 7 win streak to rank highly. I get 7 wins deathless every time but I can only ever get in the top 10k the last few weeks with four unmerged 5*s.

If anything, perhaps they could even it out so having highly merged units is less of a factor for your score. Level the playing field between those who spend and those who don't. Make it more about skill than about stats. BUT that would give people less of an incentive to spend money to get merged units, so they're unlikely to do that...

Another idea to make arena more about player skill is to make the possible win streak even longer. Why stop at 7? How about 10? 15? And maybe increased duelling swords to 5 a day along with that. The longer the winning streak possible, the harder it gets to get that many wins, the more skill it takes to get a full deathless win streak. That could create even more skill-based seperation, and then once you get to the max streak (which presumably less people would get to if the max streak is longer) then stats will matter.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Xaos Steel Wing

[Anacybele]

2 hours ago, shadowofchaos said:

There's also the part about having to guts to pick Intermediate or Beginner if you don't want to give up the losing streak.

Or hell, you know... pick Intermediate to have a decent score. I know plenty of people who aren't competitive.

Advanced is GIT GUD mode.

It's like asking to dumb down Lunatic mode for the GHB or the vanilla games.

Don't pick Advanced in that case, Ana.

When you do, you should have the expectation of an uphill battle.

My general rule is to pick a couple advanced matches to start off, then do intermediate and maybe beginner for the rest. But I can't even seem to win intermediate anymore and going all beginner won't get me very high, even with a bonus unit.

I'm not coming up with excuses though, as just as I said, I'm simply not good. But telling me "git gud" won't help, as I can't just suddenly become "gud" overnight or anything...

6 minutes ago, Xaos Steel Wing said:

Isn't the whole point of Arena to compare your score versus that of others? It's somewhat of a competitive multiplayer high score mode. If you want to rank highly in Arena, you need to get 7 deathless wins on advanced with four level 4 units.

What? Level 4 units? Why level 4? And I don't think you should have to need to do that. It's asking quite a lot even if it is possible.

7 minutes ago, Xaos Steel Wing said:

Another idea to make arena more about player skill is to make the possible win streak even longer. Why stop at 7? How about 10? 15? And maybe increased duelling swords to 5 a day along with that. The longer the winning streak possible, the harder it gets to get that many wins, the more skill it takes to get a full deathless win streak. That could create even more skill-based seperation, and then once you get to the max streak (which presumably less people would get to if the max streak is longer) then stats will matter.

...No. Please no... ._.

[Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi]

1 hour ago, Xaos Steel Wing said:

If anything, perhaps they could even it out so having highly merged units is less of a factor for your score. Level the playing field between those who spend and those who don't. Make it more about skill than about stats. BUT that would give people less of an incentive to spend money to get merged units, so they're unlikely to do that...

I want to note that before 1.2, merges mattered less and the end result was people with full teams of +0s getting matched up against opposing teams of 3x +10s and a +0. This was generally considered worse.

[MaskedAmpharos]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

And I don't think you should have to need to do that. It's asking quite a lot even if it is possible.

Actually, for every player in the top 5k and up (even a little bit before that, like top 10k perhaps), getting 7 Advanced deathless wins is not only possible, it's expected. 

Unless you have really high merge levels or a ton of skills, it's literally not even possible to rank in the top 5k without having 7 Advanced deathless wins be the bare minimum (and even just getting 7 Advanced deathless wins is often not enough). Other factors like merge level and amount of skill inheritance play a role here.

It's to the point where, at the Arena tier that I (and many others on this forum are at), if we get even a single death out of 7 Advanced matches, we automatically forfeit the match and restart the whole chain because that one death costs us several hundred or even several thousand spots because everyone else we're competing with is doing 7 Advanced deathless. 

Also @Xaos Steel Wing I actually quite like your suggestion of increasing how skill factors in by making the max streak be something like 10 instead of 7 though I doubt it'll be implemented. 

Edited May 2, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[Xaos Steel Wing]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

What? Level 4 units? Why level 4? And I don't think you should have to need to do that. It's asking quite a lot even if it is possible.
 

I meant level 40.

In the end, arena is to a certain point about your performance, not everyone will do well enough to get good rewards.

Changing matchmaking in the way you proposed would "flatten" out the game, meaning that you only will face team similar in composition to yours. Which means you face a lower variety of enemies, and if anything it would change the type of strategy involved in teambuilding - ideally then it would be about building a team that counters itself. But by decreasing the possible amount of enemy combinations you might face given any team you choose, I think it would impoverish the strategy involved in teambuilding.

As for getting better in the arena - the #1 tip I can give is to watch and learn the AI movements, and learn how to exploit them. In particular, baiting enemies into your unit range, especially with ranged units and weapons triangle advantage, so you can take out as many enemies as possible without suffering any damage yourself.

35 minutes ago, Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi said:

I want to note that before 1.2, merges mattered less and the end result was people with full teams of +0s getting matched up against opposing teams of 3x +10s and a +0. This was generally considered worse.

If there was some way to make it so that merged units mattered less in scoring, but didn't affect matchmaking vs unmerged units.

 That's why I came up with the idea of extending the possible win streaks beyond 7 matches. It makes things much harder to get a perfect score with every additional deathless win required for the "max" score. Thus increasing the skill factor while lessening the advantage purely based on stats.

I just wish there was more to differentiate player ranking based on skill and performance.

As it is, the most you can do is win 7 matches in a row with no deaths. But lots of people do that. So ranking is then decided by unit stats (aka $pending or possibly even luck), and to a certain degree luck - what were the enemy team scores you had to fight (but thats something out of your control once you're using your "best" team possible for any given week), so even players with 7 deathless runs with identical teams can have quite a different ranking (and while in theory the one of the higher score had harder opponents, thats not something the player can choose beyond selecting advanced every time).

Edited May 2, 2017 by Xaos Steel Wing

[Ice Dragon]

2 minutes ago, Xaos Steel Wing said:

I just wish there was more to differentiate player ranking based on skill and performance.

The only way to truly do this is to give all players the exact same team (or at least a shared pool of units to pick from) and set them up against the same pool of opponents.

Kind of like playing Pokémon Stadium with only rentals.