And ... it's still broken because apparently Plarium likes it that way. 

Hi, I understand arena in current state can be frustrating, but don't lose all hope. Plarium is aware of the issue and if all goes well, the patch will be released this week.

Forgive me if I am feeling skeptical, because it's been a year and how many matchmaking tweaks have been done to no avail?

The semi successful one is when Plarium add the bots, but that makes arena to be just another PvE and so Plarium took that away.

So yeah... It's been a year and it's getting worse, the complain a year ago was how to finish the Silver 1 mission have now turn to how to finish Bronze 3 mission.

I think the best way Plarium can sort this is actually show what you guys have worked out... And if it doesn't, don't blame players for losing faith to the game

Hi there !

I'm a new player (77 days into the game). I made the big error to grow my collection so I've got a lot of useless (?) rares, which I don't want to delete, fearing that they may prove usefull someday !

As a newbie, I have only one lineup with mediocre stats (speed based, thanks to HH ^^) => team power 55k, high katun speed > 220. One would argue that it's awfully low. Well I'm just a newbie in bronze world, that's to be expected, right ?

Being a newbie is an important matter here :

The game requires an insane amount of time (and some luck in pulling) in order to mount a team.

After more than 2 months, I have litterally no choice, I'm stuck with one team only, can't choose strategy after team creation. I chose speed, I can't get anti-speed  untill I get one more team, in 2? 3? weeks (more ?) if I pull proper characters. 

Btw, I 100% get matched to teams with a superior team power, in Bronze 3 (no overstatement)  :

* 90k to 155k for non speed based teams (160% to 280% my team power). Those teams have way too much defenses.

* 75k to 110k for speed based teams (136% to 200% my team power). Those teams have way too much speed.

People say that team power doesn't really mean anything but think about it :

I got a speed team with HK (55K points), my opponent also has a HK team (say 75K points), don't you think my opponent plays the same strategy than I ?

Well, I bet he does. Then team power does matter, bcs he also will have his team's speed maxxed out as much as he could. I'll most probably loose the speed race, and also the match.

Unfortunately that is not theory, I experienced it.

My only match-picking strategy is to wait for the *VERY* occasional low speed team power <70K with high katuns/spirithosts or <90k defensive teams. Oh I almost forgot that I seldomly get those free wins with the single lvl 1 man/woman teams. 

Every ~15mn, I refresh matchs.... and get disappointed, never get fair match offers, you can imagine how (NOT!) enthralling this is....

All in all I've been playing yoyo between Bronze 2 and 3 for (looong) weeks already because I have a ~70% win rate for 2 dozens per day and a <50% win rate in defense on a lot of games (can't count but I surely lost rating by every single morning).

It has become tiresome, unfun, I'm getting weary of this. 

Second thing I wanted to say : I just realized that a defender who wins several matchs against one same opponent earns rating once (O_o). Come on, defending is way more difficult than attacking, why don't you reward good defense, Plarium !?

Sorry for the wall of text, didn't intend it to be that long initially ^^ 

There are so many things wrong about arena, but giving the defender no infinite points when attacked by the same player over and over is not part of the problem. It prevents cheating, using alternative accounts and searching for your main, then attack your main a thousand times.

I understand your point about the potential for abuse.

Conversly it is frustrating when i check my log and see a player has hit me 4 times, trying different teams and because he found a winning team on his last attempt i have a net loss of points despite winning 3 of 4 in defence.

Definitely should add a "Revenge Page" to Classic so you can attack anyone that defeats you the previous day.

Maybe they could give points to the defender three times instead of once. Still enough cheat protection, I don't think the number of cheaters looking for their main account to do 3 battles is not higher as the number doing so for 1 battle, what is actually possible.

I don't think it is possible outside of Platinum.  I have never seen my alt in Arena, and haven't seen any of my clan members in G4 for along time.  Not that I am actively looking.

Arena is unfixable. Time to leave the game. 

One other thing which would prevent cheating is to not allow someone to hit you endlessly.  It is the opposite of good game design when someone hits you 3x and you end up both losing points.

Starting to feel that way, but it just isn't true. Arena exists on countless other games and they make it work fine. AFK Arena for example. But for some reason, Plarium lacks the ability to look at other games where the same kinds of systems work just fine and then copy their success. Instead, arena (as well as many other things in RSL) is constantly broken. 

If you're going to make a thing a core part of the function of the game, then you need to also make it something that everyone can participate in. Some people aren't huge PVP'ers. Some people are. If the hardcore PVP'ers want to have a space where arena is stupid-difficult, let them. But don't punish the rest of us in the process. It's soooo simple. No teams with level 60's can show up in Bronze. Not ever. Once you have reached Silver, you can never drop to Bronze again. Once you have reached Gold, you can never drop back to Silver. It ain't rocket science and it keeps prevents a whole lot of rage quitting. 

MrChuckles said: 

"It ain't rocket science and it keeps prevents a whole lot of rage quitting.  "

... and a whole lot of carefully considered quitting too!  

The  easiest  thing  would  be  to  de-couple  Arena  from  mission.  I'm  stuck  with  Bronze  I  with  all  those  4-Lvl60-Lengendary-Champs  teams  showing  up  in  Bronze.  It's  so  frustrating.  I'm  FAR  BEYOND  the  next  missions  but  I  will  never  ever  be  able  to  reach  silver  in  Arena.  That's  ridicoulous!  Plarium  promised  ti  fix  that  by  mid  May   ....  nothing  happened  so  far.  So,  Plarium ,  do  you  think  about  sticking  to  what  you've  promised?  It's  no  rocket  sience!

this is Bronze 4 this morning......

i

i

indeed.

OK, here's my take on arena.

It doesnt work. I'm struggling to stay in silver, nevermind Gold. Last night I went to bed in silver 4, around about 1840 points.  I got up this morning and I had fallen to silver 3, with 1660. A drop of nearly 2000points. I mean come on.

The inability to progress the Great Hall is a major drawback for me.

Arbiter would be nice, but not essential. I need to get to Gold 4 for the Arbiter mission, and tbh, I cant ee me ever getting there.  The guys who started the game early, when Arena was "broken" have a distinct advantage over the later starters.

How are we expected to compete with those players, or advance in the game when a major part of it is out of reach for a lot of players?

Tonight after getting downed 10 times in a row my wallet is officially shut on plarium. A year worth of grind and cannot get anywhere 

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From what i have read they have improved things for some people (if they are new or have low player power) for people in bronze to about silver 2.

Thats so that new players progress enough to possibly get hooked.

From silver 3 onwards it is as bad as ever, worse in fact if high player power.

But they dont care.. the thing is that they are only interested in the mega whales pushing plat... some of whom probably drop 10k a week on the game.

The ftp and minnows all quitting? win win to plarium because the whales will keep whaling no matter what.

The company have clearly decided a paywall for arena is appropiate and is the way to maximize revenue, and its not going to change.