It is said for a long time that those missions are non sense and need a bit of rework/thinking. But unfortunately they do not care about the player experience and suggestion from player (not even a working section for suggestions).

I have five 6-star champions and have only been able to collect 4 silver medals during last 4 months! Plarium, please take away this "get 50 silver medals" progress mission! - the missions that follow are quite easy, but this Arena mission has me STUCK!!!!!!!

OR, you know, they could do something about it. It's the number one thing players complain about. Fixing the BROKEN arena experience should be top priority. There have been plenty of great suggestions on how to do it.

We'll see where their interests lie. Arena is the key to my wallet. If they fix it I will be a regular spender.

If they don't fix it by the time my 90 days passes, I'm done with it and will advise others to avoid this game like the plague.

There is absolutely no reason that a critical aspect of the game should have a difficulty curve far surpassing that of anything else you do. Should it be challenging? Yes! But right now it's over the top. NOT fun. NOT dynamic. NOT an enjoyable feature. Right now it's just a chore.

I agree it needs to be fixed. But I have low expectations of anything happening soon.  If you enjoy the game, silver is certainly attainable as f2p. Gold, need some shard luck and/or heavy time investment.  That is all I am saying.

Silver is reachable right now as F2P, but probably not for long as the inflation continues to screw newer players more and more. I've noticed it myself in the 6 weeks I've been playing. I actually did hit Silver, briefly. Right now I'm treading water in Bronze 4. I often get kicked down overnight to Bronze 3. Fortunately my team is good for taking out the standard HK/WM/SH/Kael teams. It gets a little iffy when Apothecary is thrown in there, but the problem is the vast majority of opponents that pop up on my refresh I don't stand a chance in hell against.

No, legendary doesn't make a team automatically win - but when it's 3 or 4 of them, fully ascended and presumably max geared - doesn't matter what I do. It's not happening. 

I've spent probably $40 on this game before I decided Plarium needs to earn my money with a functioning arena system that doesn't penalize new players. I would be a regular spender if it weren't for the sad state of the arena. I would never drop $1000 on a weekend for ANY game, but if I feel a game is well done and the developers care about the player's enjoyment, I will stick around for a long time and reward them for their work. Right now I don't feel Plarium deserves any more of my money because the arena situation is such a glaring example of developer neglect considering how it relates to the rest of the game.

Yes, the inflation is a B!tch and getting worse every day.  There are many things they COULD do, I am just not optimistic.  I think they have sh!tty analytics team myself.  And terrible DEV management.

My alt is now at 90 days today.  I hit Silver in less than 30 I think. I've been on S2/S3 border for 6 weeks -- hit S4 once I think.  Part of it is my fault, focus on CB/Dragon team. I still have 4* Spirithost on team lol.  But I have entire team over 200 speed (not great) but probably 20 higher across the board.  I can do Dragon 20 but it will still take me a month to get the gear I need NOW.  

I progressed way faster on this account, I was a moron the first 30+ days on main acct LOL.  There is just no way a new account (F2P or Low/Moderate Spend) can catch up.

BP2 (if it ever happens) needs to target new accounts and include "catch-up" features in the free version that will close the gap.  I'm not talking legendaries but I have some thoughts.  The gear discrepancy and GH progress is an impossible gap to close.     

From my experience in other games like this, I think the main problem is the scoring system, which in turn destroyed the ranking system and that in turn destroyed matching up system.

In other freemium games, winning gives more points than losing, here it's a zero sum game, where in average if you win you get 10 and if you lose yo lost 10, yeah there's the 9 and 11 points discrepancy, but all in all, the average is win 10 lose 10

Because of the zero sum average, what happens is the ranking are now about taking away other people's position, to get to silver you have to get someone from silver to go down to bronze. So as time goes by, abandoned accounts sink to the bronze. Because what happens is their position in the rank got taken and they are moved down. And each day more advanced abandoned accounts will pile up even more in Bronze because of the scoring system.

In other games, when you are facing another account that is the same rank as you, if you win you get more points than when you are losing, for instance if you win you get 10, then you only lose 5 if you lost the match

With that scoring system you'll more or less keep the the abandoned accounts in their position, and NOT SINK INTO THE BOTTOM TIER where new players are coming into the PvP, because their defense team will still win points appropriate to their capabilities.

There is of course a problem also with this kind of scoring system, the top players will usually get less and less a fair match up because they usually are above the average when it comes to speed of progression, and they'll keep getting higher and higher into the score ceiling that creating a fair match up for them would be impossible.

But I still think it's better because 95% of the PvP crowd are getting a better match up

                  Does this remind you on someone you know? Sure it does ---> Plarium

Speed/turnmetter is serius problem.

i have lord salazar +33%speed boost on arena, but any way 90% battels i don't satr. some times thya ttack me 3-4 time before my turn came

about those in deffend i lose 21 battles in 14hours, i can't even comment.

also is bad how point count... just unfair...

vs same team; lose -14 win + 6 :(

sire1985 said:

Speed/turnmetter is serius problem.

i have lord salazar +33%speed boost on arena, but any way 90% battels i don't satr. some times thya ttack me 3-4 time before my turn came

about those in deffend i lose 21 battles in 14hours, i can't even comment.

also is bad how point count... just unfair...

vs same team; lose -14 win + 6 :(

Wow. That is ridiculous. Is there a hard cap on how many can be a certain arena rank? If so, they should make it unlimited for all but platinum and change the scoring system as suggested so you don't lose so much on a loss. The zero sum effectively penalizes players for attempting fights where the odds aren't in their favor. Maybe this is by design - if a player has to do more refreshes to find winnable fights, they have to use more gems. More gems = more money when players get desperate. 

To the OP- I find it impossible that you'd only get 4 silver medals in 4 months, you'd find at least more than 20 single champion defenses in that span of time.

If you want you can ask for team advice, people here would be glad to help you out! 

Edit:

To address the posts about speed/ turn meter- having the highest speed aura as your lead wouldn't assure you of going first if your speed stats are bad to begin with.

Also, about the points rewarded per victory- you'll find that the teams that appear on the beginning of the list are players with currently lower points than you, and players that appear later on the list are players that have higher points than you. So logically, beating lower ranked players would reward you with lower points, and losing to them would result in your points getting deducted significantly. (So this also applies inversely, where winning against higher ranked players would give you more, and losing to them would not be as bad) This is to generally balance players according to their arena performance. 

Rauthma-

You seem like one of the few rational people in the forum.  I appreciate your insight into things.  One of the solutions I have suggested multiple times is to expand the size of the tiers.  This accounts for SOME of the inflation, not all but would help.  Another suggestion is at reset, move inactives to bottom (like now -- setting the defense to 1 member would be better, simply removing spots 2 to 4.  But inactives represent approximately 5%) and actives to the MIDDLE of the tier.  My alt won >70% last week and I still could not move up LOL.  If I am in S3 but slip to S2 at end of week when I sleep, then get hammered early morning to S1... it takes all week to get back to S3.

The biggest problem i have is the matchmaking system. How are the 10 choices selected to be shown for each player. Is it truly rng, if so what criteria was used to create the initial list to pick from. These matches do not seem random. They seem targeted at my strengths and as i improve so do my opponents even though i am at same level in arena. 

Trips said:

Rauthma-

You seem like one of the few rational people in the forum.  I appreciate your insight into things.  One of the solutions I have suggested multiple times is to expand the size of the tiers.  This accounts for SOME of the inflation, not all but would help.  Another suggestion is at reset, move inactives to bottom (like now -- setting the defense to 1 member would be better, simply removing spots 2 to 4.  But inactives represent approximately 5%) and actives to the MIDDLE of the tier.  My alt won >70% last week and I still could not move up LOL.  If I am in S3 but slip to S2 at end of week when I sleep, then get hammered early morning to S1... it takes all week to get back to S3.

Unfortunately you are correct and the inflation issue is so great that it is near impossible for new players to compete.  The real solution is to split PvP into 2 Groups, maybe 120+ days as a cut-off (could be another variable).  The new group would not have a Platinum tier, this would only exist in the veteran group.  The veteran group would not have a Bronze tier.

I truly want to see this game improve. So far I've enjoyed this game very much except for the Arena. Grinding the rank 6 food can be a bit tedious, but at least there is a clearly attainable goal at the end of it.

The same cannot be said of Arena. Even in the span of a day my matchmaking choices have gotten worse. 

When I lose to a team that is matched pretty closely to me, I still have fun. I think "good game".

When I have nothing but teams that clearly outmatch me (which is the vast majority of what pops up on my list), I just get frustrated and usually think of some profane commentary.

I want fair fights, win or lose. The mission and even the GH upgrades are not as important to me as having a fun and engaging experience, and that is so very few and far between now. 

I shouldn't have to play for a year or get divorced for spending our savings on a mobile game to have that experience. 

Lxzy said:

To the OP- I find it impossible that you'd only get 4 silver medals in 4 months, you'd find at least more than 20 single champion defenses in that span of time.

If you want you can ask for team advice, people here would be glad to help you out! 

Edit:

To address the posts about speed/ turn meter- having the highest speed aura as your lead wouldn't assure you of going first if your speed stats are bad to begin with.

Also, about the points rewarded per victory- you'll find that the teams that appear on the beginning of the list are players with currently lower points than you, and players that appear later on the list are players that have higher points than you. So logically, beating lower ranked players would reward you with lower points, and losing to them would result in your points getting deducted significantly. (So this also applies inversely, where winning against higher ranked players would give you more, and losing to them would not be as bad) This is to generally balance players according to their arena performance. 

The point isn't about speed as a lead, the point is speed is too strong in arena due to how it performs. If an arbiter who is 300 speed goes first (And adds that speed boost via the arena.) her entire team is likely going to go first. This makes it to where it is normally one and done. There is no purpose for units that have saving passives like the sandlashed survivor, if the damn thing can get one shot because they can't do anything.

Turn based games do not go "One team and then the other." They go one team mate and then the enemie's fastest team mate. Turn meter boosting abolishes this as a possible gameplay mechanic and instead turns it into a one way slaughter fest. Top level PvP is grinder or blender teams, designed to do just this. AoE + Ally attack with a speed lead to push them into first/turn meter boosting. 

Lxzy said:

Also, about the points rewarded per victory- you'll find that the teams that appear on the beginning of the list are players with currently lower points than you, and players that appear later on the list are players that have higher points than you. So logically, beating lower ranked players would reward you with lower points, and losing to them would result in your points getting deducted significantly. (So this also applies inversely, where winning against higher ranked players would give you more, and losing to them would not be as bad) This is to generally balance players according to their arena performance. 

About the points issue I make, it's not about how you can get 11 point if you go up against higher ranking people, but that in average how much point you win is usually equal to the point you lose.

As I said, in other freemium games, in PvP winning usually nets you a higher points than losing, this will help when more new players come in to the gane, as it will set clusters of players within their own capabilities, and it will help so inactive accounts to be still around their own capabilities level.

My proposal just so it would be a MINIMUM EFFORT for you Plarium.

1. Change the point system, if you go bellow if you win, you win 9 points but if you lose, you kost only 6

If you go equal you win 10 and lose 5

If you go above you win 11 and lose 4

2. Expand the tier to have exponential tier cluster number to accommodate the higher point net

Bronze 1 to bronze 2 should need 200 points

Bronze 2 to bronze 3 should need 300 points

Bronze 3 to bronze 4 should need 400 points

Bronze 4 to silver 1 should need 600 points

And so on depending on how you need to artificially halt player on their cluster according to their PvP capabilities