Changes you would make to existing gamemodes?

[XRay]

6 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

You can't change units after previewing the opponent in the regular Arena.

Also, the opponent is definitely not limited to melee armors. Units with Duel skills are not uncommon at the top of the Arena, and unless you've been whaling or getting lucky and have been specifically building your own Duel units, you likely won't have access to any of your own.

If you can maintain Tier 21 with units with Duel skills, then there is no point to use armor units at all. Tier 21 should be ridiculously easy with a Firesweep archer and VS!Azura.

[Ice Dragon]

25 minutes ago, XRay said:

If you can maintain Tier 21 with units with Duel skills, then there is no point to use armor units at all. Tier 21 should be ridiculously easy with a Firesweep archer and VS!Azura.

Ever try to use a Firesweep archer against a +10 Surtr or +10 Halloween Myrrh with Fortress Def/Res 3, +6 to all stats from Rallies, and standing on a fortification tile?

It's also worth noting that only 5 of the 12 Arena seasons since the implementation of C Duel Infantry have had an infantry or armored bow user as a bonus hero.

Edited January 11, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[XRay]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Ever try to use a Firesweep archer against a +10 Surtr or +10 Halloween Myrrh with Fortress Def/Res 3, +6 to all stats from Rallies, and standing on a fortification tile?

It's also worth noting that only 5 of the 12 Arena seasons since the implementation of C Duel Infantry have had an infantry or armored bow user as a bonus hero.

Firesweep Bow does not need to kill. Double Poison Strikes will whittle them down for your bonus unit to kill.

[Arcphoenix]

Hmm... I had a really interesting idea. What if Tempest Trial+'s included cutscenes? They would contain original content but would contribute to the lore. (I'm mainly getting this idea from Granblue's use of events). They can give more background information on certain characters or perhaps show something that happened in their past. Mainly aspects to certain characters that we never really get to see due to the format of the game. I had Heroes characters in mind for this, though I'm sure there could be ones for other games as well. I feel it'd fit in a TT+ event especially since they're really weird vortexes of space-time and the cutscene can be explained as the summoner seeing a fragment of another time or place. It would definitely be more motivation to play. They'd either be participation based or score based, I think. 

[Ice Dragon]

19 minutes ago, XRay said:

Firesweep Bow does not need to kill. Double Poison Strikes will whittle them down for your bonus unit to kill.

The fact that you then just get run down into the corner because Armor March is still a thing.

And if you're running 2 characters with Duel skills, one of whom is a Legendary that doesn't always match the season, you really can't skimp out on maxing your other 2 units for score.

And that's not even mentioning the fact that you need C Duel Infantry in the first place, the resources to swap the blessing on your archer when needed, the resources the max out your score fodder, and the resources to max out a new bonus unit every 2 weeks. Even if you could theoretically get by by spamming Firesweep (which I'm sure is no longer going to be the case once Null C-Disrupt catches on), it requires a ton of resources to actually keep your score high enough to maintain that type of play style.

[Johann]

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

That 1. option is kinda garbage, why should the opponent still loose Lift when you weaken his Team and get a win. If anything the opponent shouldnt loose any lift and your Lift gain should be reduced by 30%. Punishing the other player who put time and ressources into his Defense Team is the wrong route to go.
I would just add the rule that only max 2 type of same movement can be placed in defense AND offensiv Teams. That way it becomes more interesting for both sides.

The specifics are debatable, no question about that, but the main idea is that players should have the ability to pick easier AR fights since nearly all other game modes (including Arena, AA, and GC) feature difficulty options of some sort, usually at a score cost.

[DehNutCase]

9 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

(which I'm sure is no longer going to be the case once Null C-Disrupt catches on)

Mind that C-Disrupt can probably be covered by a dragon effective unit. A-slot still pretty much needs to be a Duel Skill, meaning you're limited to people with DC weapons. (Or you're running a unit that can only counter 1 range with C-Disrupt for some reason.)

[Ice Dragon]

5 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Mind that C-Disrupt can probably be covered by a dragon effective unit. A-slot still pretty much needs to be a Duel Skill, meaning you're limited to people with DC weapons. (Or you're running a unit that can only counter 1 range with C-Disrupt for some reason.)

The units I'd expect to be running Null C-Disrupt are tome users or dagger users because they'd be there specifically to prevent cheesing with Winter Eirika and Loki, who are the most common high-scoring staff users.

[DehNutCase]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

The units I'd expect to be running Null C-Disrupt are tome users or dagger users because they'd be there specifically to prevent cheesing with Winter Eirika and Loki, who are the most common high-scoring staff users.

Don't all of them die to, say, Double Lion Alm, though?

 

The way I thought of it was:

You're a melee DC unit---Alm* outright murders you on player phase if you're a dragon, or he kills you EP if you're not. You spent a B-slot, Alm didn't, so him counter-killing you is pretty free.

You're a melee non-dc unit. Which does jack all to firesweep bows and such.

You're a ranged CC unit. You don't score high enough to be seen.

You're a ranged non-CC unit, Alm kills you on player phase.

 

*I call him Alm but most melee units should be able to do his job. (The dragon effectiveness is mostly to cover the 168 BST Corrins, since they get to run a relevant A-slot.)

Edited January 12, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Don't all of them die to, say, Double Lion Alm, though?

Where is this Alm on your team? You have your Firesweeper, your dancer, a bonus unit score pillow, and a generic score pillow. None of those are named Alm.

Either way, the point is your Firesweeper is no longer Firesweeping completely safely and doesn't have the punch to break the bulkiest armors before being backed into a corner since the maps with fortification tiles in the middle of the map (oasis, figure 8, zipper, etc.) prevent you from engaging until you can drag the units to the side of the map.

I don't think it's anywhere near as easy as @XRay thinks it will be while (1) still maintaining a competitive score and (2) keeping up with the resources necessary to fully build a bonus unit that is also a score pillow and keep your blessings synced with the season.

 

I mean, I could very well be wrong, but I cannot test this strategy (as I lack the resources) and my experience with Arena Assault tells me that archers are kind of trash now. Even Jakob has trouble doing anything at all to how bulky units can be with the new-fangled tier-4 skills.

[DehNutCase]

11 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

Where is this Alm on your team? You have your Firesweeper, your dancer, a bonus unit score pillow, and a generic score pillow. None of those are named Alm.

Alm is one of the score pillows. (His A-slot is probably duel skill.)

 

Like I said, I don't think it has to be Alm, most melee units should be able to do his job. The key is that the melee unit only needs to cover melee units running all of: DC Weapon, Duel A, and Null C-Disrupt, which should be pretty easy considering that's 3 slots which do nothing, vs. the score pillow's 1 slot that does nothing. Additionally, he's also there to cover ranged units running both of: Duel A, and Null C-Disrupt. The ranged unit either has bulk, in which case it doesn't do anything and you just kill everyone around it for free and leave it for last, or it has offensive threat, in which case even a score pillow would ORKO consistently.

 

Mind, personally I don't use fire sweepers at all*, but C-Disrupt doesn't really counter it. (Armor March & Fortress Def/Res are bigger problems, but Gravity double Savage Blow is pretty good at covering that.)

*I literally have no use for them since units that can force me to die when attacking them straight up don't exist.

 

Edit: Mind, this is about winning rather than feeding the bonus unit kills. If you have to feed the bonus unit kills then it pretty much has to be the anti C-Disrupt unit.

Edited January 12, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

3 minutes ago, DehNutCase said:

Alm is one of the score pillows. (His A-slot is probably duel skill.)

I don't think 170 total stat points is enough to be a score pillow when you already have two under-scoring units on your team (Firesweep weapons can't be refined, the only dancer with a score-viable dance is Legendary Azura, who can't be run off of water seasons, and both of them are also only 170 total stat points).

[DehNutCase]

15 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I don't think 170 total stat points is enough to be a score pillow when you already have two under-scoring units on your team (Firesweep weapons can't be refined, the only dancer with a score-viable dance is Legendary Azura, who can't be run off of water seasons, and both of them are also only 170 total stat points).

I mean, strictly speaking melee armors are also melee units that can handle the anti C-Disrupt role.

 

Fuck trying to run that team, though. The team would depend a lot on AI manipulation to reduce the enemy team's ward stats from +12 to +4 (2 armor per pair) or +0 (if you manage perfect separation). Which means the team would have to run guidance (for maps where you'd be boxed in without being able to air-lift across mountains), since you can't run repo.

Edited January 12, 2019 by DehNutCase

[Ice Dragon]

Anyways, completely unrelated because I think the previous argument wound down, but I have a revision to my previous list of things:

Forging Bonds: Get rid of the multiplier. Permanently set points at the 2× multiplier level. They've tuned the schedule to have many more 2× multipliers compared to the first time this event came around, and that just made it so that you didn't want to play the game mode when the multiplier is only 1×.

And really, why the hell do you want to keep a mechanic that specifically discourages players from playing the game mode?

Edited January 12, 2019 by Ice Dragon

[Arcphoenix]

So I tried just about one of the stupidest things I could possibly do as an F2P player: Make my starting team for arena assault as the highest possible BST I could. Two of the units were full +10's. Somehow I cleared all 7 battles without losses. It was painfully difficult, took a lot of caution, and a battle calculator for the sixth battle. I saw so many builds (usually 2-3 fully merged 5 stars per battle) and had to think of how I'd take them down with my remaining units, mostly unmerged. The feeling from winning that and the wonder of seeing all the fantastic builds was pretty rewarding.

It made me realize what the problem may be with Arena Assault. What is the problem with arena assault? Well, the problem with it is that, with the way it's built, it's do and finish now, don't start it now, or just try and get it out of the way as quickly as you can and with few losses. Arena Assault runs take a lot of time investment to complete, and if you're having a busy week, you're going to be struggling to get it done. No you can't just pause it and pick it up tomorrow, because you'll miss out on your daily log-in bonus, seeing the quests of the day, and perhaps a limited time map or free summon. The mentality it places on you isn't a pleasant one to say the least.

 

Arena Assault isn't the only multimap mode, sure, but the others are more bearable for these reasons:

1. Blessed Gardens and Squad Assault don't have time limited rewards, and you can plan for them because the units stay the same. The map counts usually aren't that bad considering this
2. Chain Challenge - the above plus you can do it whenever you have time. Which is a blessing given how cruel some can be. KO's also aren't going to cost your reward.
3. Tempest Trial- It's entirely participation based. It doesn't matter how well you do so long as you play it enough. You also have well enough time to get all the rewards. You also don't need to complete a full run to make progress.

 

Taking these things into account, I've thought of a few things that could help:

1. Double the length of an Arena Assault season and double the rewards:
In my opinion, this would majorly allow much more flexibility for a player to finish a run and would also give players an opportunity to have a nice, well deserved, and much needed breather between the times they do runs. Since bonus units aren't a thing in AA, a changing in the length shouldn't cause too many issues.

2. Allow players the ability to pause the assault to do a limited set of other things.
If you're trapped in an unfinished session, you miss out on important rewards. In my opinion, if you're in the middle of an assault run, you should be able to pause and do other things in between battles that won't affect your units. For example, you can summon, you can visit the castle plaza to collect feathers and orbs, check the news, etc. Imo, Ally growth, change equipment, and interact with allies should be locked while you're taking a break from an Arena Assault. You can also do other maps, but your units won't gain exp or hero merit until you end your current assault run, be it by surrendering, victory/loss, or the end of the season. Arena Assault will also remember what units you have used in your current run if you decide to pause your run so that when you resume, you still can't pick them. No change there.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Arcphoenix

[Tree]

3 hours ago, Arcphoenix said:

In my opinion, if you're in the middle of an assault run, you should be able to pause and do other things in between battles that won't affect your units. For example, you can summon, you can visit the castle plaza to collect feathers and orbs, check the news, etc. Imo, Ally growth, change equipment, and interact with allies should be locked while you're taking a break from an Arena Assault.

Locking most of the ally menu would probably remove the benefit of pausing the mode in the first place. Technically summoning can give you new units, so that could affect the outcome too. I only get minimal rewards there because I don't enjoy the mode. I'm surprised they haven't shortened it to five battles. Seven battles implies a week, yet it all has to be completed at once.

At least you can retry as much as you want in Arena Assault. Aether Raids is quite stressful because it provides unique rewards, and you have to play every single day with very few second chances.