Arena Update Coming! Downtime planned for May 8th!

[Taim Meich]

7 hours ago, Anacybele said:

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...

Individual innate skill matters, of course. But you can get better with practice and some change in mentality. The basics are:

- Being able to calculate damage, at least in common situations. You'd need to know how the weapon triangle affects damage, which with a very simple calculator (like the one included on every smartphone) you can. You don't need to be good at math, you just have to learn how to use a tool, and memorize (or just have in a note somewhere) the appropriate formulas. This is crucial not only for evaluating which units may be dangerous for yours, but also to have a mental preview of the damage of a unit you cannot reach with one or more of your units.

- Being able to design a team that can handle most threats. Key word here is most, of course. My current team can handle most individual threats with ease (red mages being the only ones I don't have a hard counter for), but certain team compositions will always screw me up. Those teams may not be optimal, but happen to counter mine very well. So, you need to take into account color diversity, sure, but also damage type diversity and range. Having one ranged and one magic damage unit at least is, I'd say, pretty much mandatory (both could be the same unit, in fact). Having enough color diversity (but not necessarily all 3, some times just 2 is enough) is also advised. Make sure you have a rough plan for all the different kind of maps. There are some maps with very restricted movement for some type of units, if you use those you need to maneuver around that.

- Finally, analyzing each battle and taking it slowly. Click on every enemy units at the start of the battle. Note their rarity, merge level and skills. Look at their stats, specifically their speed, as that will be the most determinant factor most of the time. Position your units before battle to optimize your buffs and lure the enemy where you want. Decide when to go all out and when to bait (personal advice of mine: always default to bait, as the AI tends to scatter if given enough time, leaving more holes to pick them apart).

 

Hope this helps!

[Xaos Steel Wing]

7 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

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.

That's going too far, so far as to remove the point of it being a "player versus player" mode where you face the teams other players have made.

Card games are a good analogy, you can construct any deck you want from the cards allowed (within whatever deckbuilding limits the game has), and you could potentially face any possible legal deck when you sit down to face an opponent. Sure, being able to afford rare and valuable cards can help you build certain strong decks, but good players with budget decks can still beat these decks.

Another analogy is MMOs and stat boosting gear in PvP. Some MMOs have gear you earn by grinding that boosts your stats for PVP. In some games it makes a huge difference and players with gear have a massive advantage over those who don't, in some it makes only a small difference (and skilled ungeared players can defeat fully geared players of lesser skill), and yet other games have no stat affecting gear at all.

Fighting games are an even better example of players being on an even playing field. You could potentially face any character in the game and need to be ready for any character. Or MOBAs, but drafting in ranked modes exist so you can somewhat tailor your team to what you know your opponent will bring and has picked and banned.

But the thing about Heroes is... stats make you rank higher no matter what. Getting 7 wins in a row without a unit dying takes some amount of skill, but there's still plenty of people who are able to do it, and amongst those who possess this minimum level of skill, ranking is decided by unit stats and some degree of luck. And I just wish this wasn't the case, that there was more differentiation by skill amongst the higher ranks as opposed to just getting to a minimum threshold of skill and having stats determine rank from there.

 

[!Skydiver]

If there's one thing that I would really love they implement is the possibility of running arena using stamina with the condition that it doesn't count in the score/streak, so we could practice and test our teams while not rendering crests useless. I doubt they would do that though.

[salinea]

1 hour ago, Jason Funderburker said:

If there's one thing that I would really love they implement is the possibility of running arena using stamina with the condition that it doesn't count in the score/streak, so we could practice and test our teams while not rendering crests useless. I doubt they would do that though.

That's one reason I miss the daily arena quests. Having 6 matches a day rather than 3 (and making it worthwhile with feathers!) was pretty neat for additional practice.

[Anacybele]

3 hours ago, Taim Meich said:

Individual innate skill matters, of course. But you can get better with practice and some change in mentality. The basics are:

- Being able to calculate damage, at least in common situations. You'd need to know how the weapon triangle affects damage, which with a very simple calculator (like the one included on every smartphone) you can. You don't need to be good at math, you just have to learn how to use a tool, and memorize (or just have in a note somewhere) the appropriate formulas. This is crucial not only for evaluating which units may be dangerous for yours, but also to have a mental preview of the damage of a unit you cannot reach with one or more of your units.

- Being able to design a team that can handle most threats. Key word here is most, of course. My current team can handle most individual threats with ease (red mages being the only ones I don't have a hard counter for), but certain team compositions will always screw me up. Those teams may not be optimal, but happen to counter mine very well. So, you need to take into account color diversity, sure, but also damage type diversity and range. Having one ranged and one magic damage unit at least is, I'd say, pretty much mandatory (both could be the same unit, in fact). Having enough color diversity (but not necessarily all 3, some times just 2 is enough) is also advised. Make sure you have a rough plan for all the different kind of maps. There are some maps with very restricted movement for some type of units, if you use those you need to maneuver around that.

- Finally, analyzing each battle and taking it slowly. Click on every enemy units at the start of the battle. Note their rarity, merge level and skills. Look at their stats, specifically their speed, as that will be the most determinant factor most of the time. Position your units before battle to optimize your buffs and lure the enemy where you want. Decide when to go all out and when to bait (personal advice of mine: always default to bait, as the AI tends to scatter if given enough time, leaving more holes to pick them apart).

 

Hope this helps!

Thank you, but my main issue is that first one. I've never been good at calculations or formulas or anything like that. I barely passed physics in school because of it and while I did okay in math during regular algebra and geometry, as soon as I hit algebra II and trigonometry and stuff, I was just totally lost. I simply get confused every time I try to remember or use a formula or calculations. The only way I've been able to remember any formulas is either if they're very very simple (such as the Pythagorean theorem) or if I learn them through a song (I STILL know the quadratic formula because one teacher I had taught us a song to remember it).

The song thing is just awkward...  I would still try to use that method to learn Heroes calculations and formulas, but there's no song to use for it. Wish Azura could help. :P

[Taim Meich]

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Thank you, but my main issue is that first one. I've never been good at calculations or formulas or anything like that. I barely passed physics in school because of it and while I did okay in math during regular algebra and geometry, as soon as I hit algebra II and trigonometry and stuff, I was just totally lost. I simply get confused every time I try to remember or use a formula or calculations. The only way I've been able to remember any formulas is either if they're very very simple (such as the Pythagorean theorem) or if I learn them through a song (I STILL know the quadratic formula because one teacher I had taught us a song to remember it).

The song thing is just awkward...  I would still try to use that method to learn Heroes calculations and formulas, but there's no song to use for it. Wish Azura could help. :P

Try having this at hand when on the arena, and it'll do the dirty work for you :)

https://rocketmo.github.io/feh-damage-calc/

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, Taim Meich said:

Try having this at hand when on the arena, and it'll do the dirty work for you :)

https://rocketmo.github.io/feh-damage-calc/

Okay, it's worth a shot, I guess.

[TheNiddo]

Arena will never ever be watered down/made easier. That's how they make a good chunk of their money: forcing people to fish for better characters/skills so they can do better in arena and get more feathers. 

Gotta sit down and force yourself to plan more/spam battle simulators if you really need to. I got 7 deathless advanced arena wins last season, I was only in the 24k range with a score of 4714.

You basically need to hit 4700+ seeing as somebody with 4798 was looking at the top 5K. You can do the math and see how quickly ranks change with even 1 point differences. They ain't going to change that. If anything they're going to make it more difficult with the terrain stuff. Game ain't here to be handing out feathers easily. 

[Bartozio]

5 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Thank you, but my main issue is that first one. I've never been good at calculations or formulas or anything like that. I barely passed physics in school because of it and while I did okay in math during regular algebra and geometry, as soon as I hit algebra II and trigonometry and stuff, I was just totally lost. I simply get confused every time I try to remember or use a formula or calculations. The only way I've been able to remember any formulas is either if they're very very simple (such as the Pythagorean theorem) or if I learn them through a song (I STILL know the quadratic formula because one teacher I had taught us a song to remember it).

The song thing is just awkward...  I would still try to use that method to learn Heroes calculations and formulas, but there's no song to use for it. Wish Azura could help. :P

I get that you're not good at calculations, but the ones you have to use here shouldn't be that difficult. The basic formula is just (attacking units atk)-(defending units def/res), possibly times 2 if the attacking character's speed is high enough. If the weapon triangle is involved, it becomes (attacking units atk)*(1.2 if advantage, 0.8 if disadvantage) -(defending units def/res).

Of course there are several skills that make things a bit more complicated, but I think that if you just learn to be able to use this formula and be carefull of specials, you'll be fine in most cases. I feel that this formula is even easier then Pythagoras, so you should be fine. Once you have thought yourself to use this all the time it's relevant, you can always start to look into special cases, or just use a calculator for it.

Of course, nobody is forcing you to put a lot of effort into planning out your battles in this game. If you feel that it's not worth it, then that is fine as well. It just means you won't archieve the same results as the people who do.

[Anacybele]

16 minutes ago, TheNiddo said:

Arena will never ever be watered down/made easier. That's how they make a good chunk of their money: forcing people to fish for better characters/skills so they can do better in arena and get more feathers. 

Gotta sit down and force yourself to plan more/spam battle simulators if you really need to. I got 7 deathless advanced arena wins last season, I was only in the 24k range with a score of 4714.

You basically need to hit 4700+ seeing as somebody with 4798 was looking at the top 5K. You can do the math and see how quickly ranks change with even 1 point differences. They ain't going to change that. If anything they're going to make it more difficult with the terrain stuff. Game ain't here to be handing out feathers easily. 

Not possible. I've never ever heard of anyone scoring THAT high and I've seen a lot of arena scores.

13 minutes ago, Bartozio said:

I get that you're not good at calculations, but the ones you have to use here shouldn't be that difficult. The basic formula is just (attacking units atk)-(defending units def/res), possibly times 2 if the attacking character's speed is high enough. If the weapon triangle is involved, it becomes (attacking units atk)*(1.2 if advantage, 0.8 if disadvantage) -(defending units def/res).

Of course there are several skills that make things a bit more complicated, but I think that if you just learn to be able to use this formula and be carefull of specials, you'll be fine in most cases. I feel that this formula is even easier then Pythagoras, so you should be fine. Once you have thought yourself to use this all the time it's relevant, you can always start to look into special cases, or just use a calculator for it.

Of course, nobody is forcing you to put a lot of effort into planning out your battles in this game. If you feel that it's not worth it, then that is fine as well. It just means you won't archieve the same results as the people who do.

I don't think it's easier than the Pythagorean though. Sorry, but it's just what I think.

And calculations won't always help since I can't 100% choose my opponents. I ran into too many dragons and mages again in my run and I had several deaths as a result (almost every battle had a Ninian. Fuck her). Azura is supposed to be my mage counter, but the dragons don't go down easy because of high def and me lacking any magic. Azura still tanks magic well enough though, thankfully. Glad I got her.

I still couldn't reach 4,000. I only managed 3,598, though it is my personal best. It's just too difficult and I still think the arena ought to be watered down a bit for players like me who aren't experts and/or whales. I haven't tried that calculator link yet though, I wanted to see how I could do without it first.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Anacybele

[Ice Dragon]

2 hours ago, Xaos Steel Wing said:

That's going too far, so far as to remove the point of it being a "player versus player" mode where you face the teams other players have made.

I never said that's how things should be done. I said, if they really wanted to put all players on an even field, that's the only way to do so. That you found the suggestion absurd in context is exactly what I was going for: It doesn't work in Heroes.

[MaskedAmpharos]

22 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Not possible. I've never ever heard of anyone scoring THAT high and I've seen a lot of arena scores.

I don't think it's easier than the Pythagorean though. Sorry, but it's just what I think.

And calculations won't always help since I can't 100% choose my opponents. I ran into too many dragons and mages again in my run and I had several deaths as a result (almost every battle had a Ninian. Fuck her). Azura is supposed to be my mage counter, but the dragons don't go down easy because of high def and me lacking any magic. Azura still tanks magic well enough though, thankfully. Glad I got her.

I still couldn't reach 4,000. I only managed 3,598, though it is my personal best. It's just too difficult and I still think the arena ought to be watered down a bit for players like me who aren't experts and/or whales. I haven't tried that calculator link yet though, I wanted to see how I could do without it first.

I regularly score in the mid 4800s every week, and I'm not even top 1k. 

There are several people on this forum like @Ice Dragon or @Ryu Yuki that regularly get over 4900. 

@MrSmokestack scores higher than 4700 every week, and he sometimes isn't able to make top 5k. 

There are plenty of people that score that high. 

I can post screenshots later if you absolutely don't believe me, but I'm sure there are plenty of people on here that can back me up that 4.7k really isn't that high of a score. 

EDIT: In fact, I did the math with your team, and it is entirely possible to get in the mid 4700s with your exact team provided you run 7 deathless Advanced matches, and with a team of Frederick, Azura, Klein, and Ike that is perfectly possible. Especially with Ike, Azura, and Klein who are among some of the best units in the entire game.

Edited May 2, 2017 by MaskedAmpharos

[Anacybele]

13 minutes ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

I regularly score in the mid 4800s every week, and I'm not even top 1k. 

There are several people on this forum like @Ice Dragon or @Ryu Yuki that regularly get over 4900. 

@MrSmokestack scores higher than 4700 every week, and he sometimes isn't able to make top 5k. 

There are plenty of people that score that high. 

I can post screenshots later if you absolutely don't believe me, but I'm sure there are plenty of people on here that can back me up that 4.7k really isn't that high of a score. 

EDIT: In fact, I did the math with your team, and it is entirely possible to get in the mid 4700s with your exact team provided you run 7 deathless Advanced matches, and with a team of Frederick, Azura, Klein, and Ike that is perfectly possible. Especially with Ike, Azura, and Klein who are among some of the best units in the entire game.

If it's possible, then it's extremely hard if you're not a whale or expert.

Maybe on someone else's hands it's possible for that team. That is the exact team I used just now in my run. But like I said, I only got 3,589. I face too many mages and dragons for it to be deathless and I'm still no expert player.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Anacybele

[MaskedAmpharos]

Just now, Anacybele said:

If it's possible, then it's extremely hard if you're not a whale or expert.

Maybe on someone else's hands it's possible for that team. That is the exact team I used just now in my run. But like I said, I only got 3,985. I face too many mages and dragons for it to be deathless and I'm still no expert player.

I wouldn't consider myself (or most of the people that score above 4.7k) either whales or experts. In fact, many of them are F2P (no idea about their Fire Emblem expertise though). 

Your team is perfectly fine as it is; the only real way to improve from here is to improve as a player, which takes a lot of time and effort. Don't worry if you get there a little slower than you would like. Progress is progress, and you're definitely improving! You'll be able to get there someday; I know it!

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, MaskedAmpharos said:

I wouldn't consider myself (or most of the people that score above 4.7k) either whales or experts. In fact, many of them are F2P (no idea about their Fire Emblem expertise though). 

Your team is perfectly fine as it is; the only real way to improve from here is to improve as a player, which takes a lot of time and effort. Don't worry if you get there a little slower than you would like. Progress is progress, and you're definitely improving! You'll be able to get there someday; I know it!

I still believe it's very hard.

Nah, I don't think I'll be as good as the rest of you. It's just not my kind of thing. I just want to get up to 4,000 and see more ranking awards since it seems to be virtually impossible for players like me to finish with a rank at all.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Anacybele

[Othin]

The arena thread has a lot of people posting high scores. I've been getting just sky of 4.8k while doing decently as f2p (as have several others), and that's right around the 5k threshold. Which just means there are about 5k players doing better than us, and no amount of updating should change that.

[MaskedAmpharos]

Just now, Anacybele said:

I still believe it's very hard.

Nah, I don't think I'll be as good as the rest of you. It's just not my kind of thing. I just want to get up to 4,000 and see more ranking awards since it seems to be virtually impossible to finish with a rank at all.

Hard? Yes. 

Impossible? Not at all. 

The first step to improvement is to fix your mindset. That sounds cliche, sure, but it's true. You need to first start believing that you can do it, and the rest will slowly but surely follow. Saying it's impossible won't help anyone, especially because it's not. It's difficult but not impossible, and there's a world of difference between the two.

[Taim Meich]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Nah, I don't think I'll be as good as the rest of you. It's just not my kind of thing. I just want to get up to 4,000 and see more ranking awards since it seems to be virtually impossible for players like me to finish with a rank at all.

Honestly, that defeatist mentality may be your biggest problem (that, and having exactly zero magic damage on your team >_> )

Don't take this too hard, but when you mentioned you did bad in physics but good enough in math, that caught my attention. I'm a physicist myself, and while now I'm not teaching, I've taught in the past quite a bit. The problem with people that do "good enough" at math but fail at physics is usually that they don't analyze the problems. Problems (and each arena battle is a little puzzle/problem for you to solve) require that you understand what do you need to solve them (for example, "getting rid of this unit would make the rest trivial"), and how are you going to achieve those goals with the tools you have (for example, "I need to bait here and then swap unit positions and lure it into attacking its counter"). You need to have a) good tools (aka, good units that complement each other), b) good understanding of what unit can and can't do, and c) willingness to fail once and again in order to improve.

After each defeat, or each time you loss a unit, think about it. What could have you done to prevent that? Don't think it was inevitable, rewind in your mind and think of an alternative. Some times maybe there isn't a clear alternative, but you have to think hard about it, every time. Always play safe, and pay attention on what the AI usually does. Never overextend and "hope for the best". If you're unsure, always back up and hope the AI screws their positioning (they often do).

Finally, read a lot, ask a lot, think a lot about the game and the metagame. Study common builds, and think of ways of countering them. Ask the gurus here about how to optimize your team or how to build a certain unit. Think of ways to exploit your newfound power in the form of a dancer (dancers are awesome but require some experience to use properly).

Also, try not to go for lower difficulties. It's better to lose one unit in the highest tier than clearing flawlessly in the second one, and the difference in difficulty is not that much, honestly. It's mostly stats, but the team composition remains similar.

[Anacybele]

5 minutes ago, Taim Meich said:

Honestly, that defeatist mentality may be your biggest problem (that, and having exactly zero magic damage on your team >_> )

Well, not having that mentality sure didn't help me. And I shouldn't need magic damage. It would certainly help in some situations, but it shouldn't outright be a requirement.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Anacybele

[Cute Chao]

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Well, not having that mentality sure didn't help me. And I shouldn't need magic damage. It would certainly help in some situations, but it shouldn't outright be a requirement.

Why not? That's the whole point of a balanced team. You balance it to counter res and defence, since some units are naturally better with one than the other. Whilst you may get along okay with just melee, the game is actually encouraging diversity. It makes sense - there's a reason there are mages in FE in the first place.

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, Cute Chao said:

Why not? That's the whole point of a balanced team. You balance it to counter res and defence, since some units are naturally better with one than the other. Whilst you may get along okay with just melee, the game is actually encouraging diversity. It makes sense - there's a reason there are mages in FE in the first place.

Not everyone likes or wants to use mages? I'd rather just stick with swords, axes, and lances, and sometimes bows.

[Taim Meich]

8 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

 And I shouldn't need magic damage.

Why not? By definition, the metagame is the game beyond the game, which means we users define it by our unit choices. Most people pick low res units and/or prefer -res banes, so it's only natural to capitalize on that weakness in order to do well. It's not mandatory per se, but your pool of viable choices decrease when you don't capitalize on that. Think of it this way: units can be of 4 types in the offense/defense category: Physically offensive and defensive (most melees), magically offensive and defensive (the vast majority of mages), physically offensive and magically defensive (the pegasus knight archetype, but other units do this as well), and magically offensive but physically defensive (most dragons, basically). You need to take into account those archetypes and deal with them one way or the other, because you don't know (nor you shouldn't) what you'll find in the arena.

 

Edit:

Quote

Not everyone likes or wants to use mages? I'd rather just stick with swords, axes, and lances, and sometimes bows.

And that's fine, but you'll have to forfeit complaining about the units that would be better dealt with magic and/or magic resistant units. And thus lowering your chances at a good arena score. Still, the basic 4000 should be achievable with your team, I'm sure of it.

Edited May 2, 2017 by Taim Meich

[Cute Chao]

6 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Not everyone likes or wants to use mages? I'd rather just stick with swords, axes, and lances, and sometimes bows.

It isn't about what people like to use. It's a strategy game. I think you forget that sometimes. Maybe if you're really good at strategy, you can find ways to use only the unit that hits one type, but if you're not, then you work around that. You refuse to and then claim it's because it's all too hard. I suck at strat, but I use the units I have of all kinds available, even those I don't like as much (Bunny!Camilla isn't my number one but she is handy).

What if I wanted to only use swords? Should the game then cater to that? Should I claim things are too hard if I can't win? I don't like the axes/lances/bows/magic available to me so the game should make it so I can win?

Edited May 2, 2017 by Cute Chao

[Elieson]

Just now, Anacybele said:

Not everyone likes or wants to use mages? I'd rather just stick with swords, axes, and lances, and sometimes bows.

Then you're playing the game in a way that's designed to make you unhappy.

It'd be like intentionally driving a car without a roof because you like convertibles [or motorcycle], but then complaining that when it rains, you're getting wet. Because of what the game is, there's just things to accomodate for that just make your life easier. If you don't mind getting wet in the rain while driving, then by all means, drive that convertible [or motorcycle]. You have the ability to invest your time, money and effort into using a resource(s) that will more appropriately cover your needs, but you're not because of personal preference.

 

Can you see why it's puzzling to us, when you're using this kind of logic to express concern about Heroes?

[shadowofchaos]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

I still believe it's very hard.

Nah, I don't think I'll be as good as the rest of you. It's just not my kind of thing. I just want to get up to 4,000 and see more ranking awards since it seems to be virtually impossible for players like me to finish with a rank at all.

With your team, just pick Intermediate for the most part and have a few Advanced.

If you have level 40s, you can probably make it in the 4000s points if you do it deathless.

Edited May 2, 2017 by shadowofchaos