GamePress

Updated Thoughts on New Arena pt2: what we do about it

Pt1: https://fireemblem.gamepress.gg/q-a/updated-thoughts-new-arena-pt1-whats-wrong-arena

Again, going to try to keep it short and to the point. The three sections are my denunciation of IS, why we can't just walk out, and what we do instead.

I think the developers are not so stupid as to be unaware how absurd is the system they have created and to be aware of alternatives. There's a fairly blatant cash grab going on (to say nothing of seasonal blessing bonuses and such) and part of it is ranking players based on a system that has mostly to do with their ability to pull and very little to do with their ability to make good builds and play them correctly against the most annoying and dangerous threats arena defense players can throw at them. IS shows that their priorities are money first, good game second, honesty last.

It would be nice if we could just walk out entirely on this mode, but there are a few reasons why it's not that simple:
- resource rewards are helpful in other parts of the game
- we do want a mode where other players can try to rip our heads off with pain+ healers and dancers and Reinhardt and we can try to outsmart them. Ideally, we would all just be good sports about it and winning or losing wouldn't be a huge deal.
- we do need a PvP or pseudo-PvP mode that's only available 20% of the time (grand conquests) and which isn't territory-based. GC is a significantly different game due to potentially unlimited reinforcements for both sides and a focus on territorial objectives.
- we do want some way of testing where we stand in relation to other players, even if it's not a better/worse thing as much as a matter of stylistic differences

So what can we actually DO?
- seek to get it deeper into ourselves how little arena has to do with skill. This understanding will work its way out in our decisions in-game and our discussions outside the game. It can take a bit of time, but it's well worth it for how much frustration it avoids and how much more rewarding of summoning decisions it enables us to make.
- realize that if you're saving all your orbs and feathers just to spend them on units that are only good in arena (ex: merging legendary heroes you don't actually like that much as combatants; -atk on units that are meant to be offensive powerhouses), you're getting very poor orb and feather returns for your investments.
- play in scoring ranges where dancers and healers and etc. appear more often, and shift your focus to other approaches to the game such as grand conquests and abyssal maps or flashy solutions to maps that are less difficult.
- participate in more sharing of that kind of experience and make it the subject of discussion rather than what happens when you score so high that it's the same 9-10 armours every battle. Make videos or blogs or etc. about stuff going on in these slightly lower scoring ranges (I still recommend high merges because people do tend to build better when they're putting 9 and 10 merges on a unit)
- following the above, join me in creating a culture in which we regard the crown as an empty symbol of false glory used by IS to bait the undiscerning, a lie prized by rogues, and a silliness tolerated by honest players who want resources or who, unlike so many, simply enjoy (without pretense) the bizarre challenge of spamming BST and SP while still trying to feed kills to one unit
- avoid giving heed to hecklers who insist that arena is the ultimate or only legitimate measuring stick of a player's ability, greatness, or worth. There's so much arena doesn't begin to show about a player.
- the idea is to use the power of community to compete against IS' attempt to monopolize prestige and recognition. They will always have a certain advantage against us because they control the centralized system, but I think we can find a lot of enjoyment, very likely enough for full satisfaction, without the help of the centralized system.

Who's with me?

Other suggestions?

Asked by Seeker3 months 1 week ago

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Answers

I can see that you are very salty about the changes made, but there's nothing we can do and the damage has been dealt by IS.

the best thing we can hope is that IS won't do something similar like with the new arena changes with Other modes.

I'm not so sure about the "salty" part (also, I hate this usage because it's a crime against the goodness of salt, but that's besides the point). I made these two posts mainly for the interest of those who want to get away from all the attention given to arena and who might like some perspective on how little they're giving up.

I agree that it's settled and done. That's precisely why I turned my efforts to "so what do we do?"

The idea of this "underground rebellion" sounds hillarious to me. I mean, everyone is free to focus on and/or share whatever they enjoy the most and if it is a +10 armor team that reaches maximum possible score in arena, or a true solo of marth's abyssal map with a 1 star Felicia, I won't really judge.

Like it or not, arena is a part of this game and people are going to care about it more or less. Also, I don't really think that people here in this forum are putting arena on a pedestal or something like that (but feel free to prove me wrong), because the only posts that I remember about arena here, are those that are against it, which even though it's justified, it's getting a bit repetitive.

You point out well that most people here don't put it on a pedestal. I think I'm more frustrated that the mode gets any credit whatsoever of the kind of credit it gets. Beating abyssal L.Marth takes probably a lot more skill and has a lot less to do with your ability to pull, but what gets talked about so much more? (and I didn't manage to clear either abyssal, so let nobody say I'm clamouring for credit)

So much of the credit given to arena is implicit. Almost nobody will speak in defense of the mode, but we talk so much about it in comparison to everything else. How many times do we hear "for arena" for every reference to abyssal map strategies or just PvE content more generally? On top of it, people pull for duel skills and merge units to make builds that are good in arena and rubbish in every other situation. Some even tailor their IVs this way. If it seemed like a fringe minority I would be a lot more inclined to accept that some handful is legit interested in this weird way of playing, but as it stands I have a hard time accepting how much interest such a bad game mode commands.

I think that it's in the nature of most people, that they are competitive, which more likely is even more true about gamers, so a "competitive" game mode has the ability to steal a bit more attention.

Being forced to not play how you want in arena is indeed unfortunate tho. The bonus unit system killed every last bit of enjoyment that I got from arena. The only thing I do now is, that I just rush 5 arena games on the first day of the season and then just play with heroes that I actually like in the "normal" scoring range, where there's some actual variety....It's like this in other games too tho. I used to play Hearthstone for example and I remember that the highest ranks consisted of 2-4 decks of cards, whereas the lower ranks had some crazy stuff....so in the end it's just a conflict of what you want to do vs. what you have to do to "win".

I'm not really playing a devil's advocate here and I don't want to defend arena at all, because there are so many better game modes (like the currently ongoing forging bonds), but the devs are digging such a deep hole for themselves, that I don't think that we'll get an improvement anytime soon.

Yeah, there's an aspect of response that I think I neglected to mention, which is that I've accepted the mode for the bizarre, distorted thing that it is, and I'm going to play it as that as well as I can using units that I developed for other modes. I don't see there being a major overhaul anytime soon.

Seems like we're mostly on the same page.

Yeah, a major overhaul will either arrive after a long time or it will never be implemented. I think someone on the earlier threads mentioned that major overhauls that would hamper the value of players' monetary investments into the game, would actually cause some legal problems for the developer/publisher in certain legislations, so if that's true, we can only expect some minor and careful tweaks at best.

The bonus unit system is there to promote constant summoning, which implies constant money spending. If the devs are going to see constant income or even a consistently increasing income, it gives them no real indication, that they should be changing anything. As long as they keep getting enough money, they essentially don't need to do a thing, so the player base holds the aces in this regard. That's probably the biggest problem that our small gamepress community here faces tho, because I doubt that our discussions and viewpoints reach the players who go all-out for +10 on a unit in every single new banner.

I guess that in the end, the only thing we can do, is to accept the facts and do our best with what we have available, which is (as we mostly agreed), to just play arena as it was intended with all its downsides and then just enjoy it with units that we actually want to play with.

It would be very difficult to reach enough players who spend a ton and convince them not to whale, GamePress or otherwise. A lot of them probably do it somewhat compulsively, too, so it would not suffice for them to see the lie they're being fed.

Also, it probably wouldn't be enough because we have an issue in that some decision maker is interested more in money than in making the game the best it can be. The issue isn't that they want money, it's that they want as much as they can get. Releasing and good skills would be enough to keep some money coming in, and this is already a high-grossing game from what I've read despite how many free orbs we get. Since the decision makers prefer money to ethics, they'll find one way or another to wring out some extra dough. I guess we can only be thankful for what good there still is in the game, and it's not a pittance.

I love this post except for two things.

"- we do want a mode where other players can try to rip our heads off with pain+ healers and dancers and Reinhardt and we can try to outsmart them. Ideally, we would all just be good sports about it and winning or losing wouldn't be a huge deal.
- we do need a PvP or pseudo-PvP mode that's only available 20% of the time (grand conquests) and which isn't territory-based. GC is a significantly different game due to potentially unlimited reinforcements for both sides and a focus on territorial objectives.
- we do want some way of testing where we stand in relation to other players, even if it's not a better/worse thing as much as a matter of stylistic differences"

I'm pretty sure that's not what I want arena to be. Have you considered that maybe the best fix to arena would be to create a different competitive mode? GC could be used as the skeleton of it, as merges, SP and BST are not factored in, and the scores are all based on players merit. Just remove players reinforcements and the forced turn limit. 8 vs many. The number of kills and bases conquered before your team is destroyed/time is up should be enough to rank the players without artificial means.

"- The idea is to use the power of community to compete against IS' attempt to monopolize prestige and recognition. They will always have a certain advantage against us because they control the centralized system, but I think we can find a lot of enjoyment, very likely enough for full satisfaction, without the help of the centralized system."

I feel this is completely out of place. IS is not trying to monopolize recognition and prestige through arena. That would require them to remove the ranking systems from TT, GC, and other game modes, and highly contradicts the new Abyssal maps and their rewards (they are as good as the crowns as a sign of recognition).

The players are the ones that give arena so much credit, not IS.

I really liked your last point so I want to start there. My entire point in this post was that I want to own up to how I respond to what I find bogus and ridiculous, and what I'm seeing (and didn't see before) is that I need to be a bit more circumspect about my response to other players' responses.

I still think that IS has some responsibility for the way arena tiers are perceived. GC rankings don't differentiate very good from best; any very good player will probably make top 3 rather consistently because there's no centralization. TT is its own game, easily recognized for being more a question of time investment than of strategic brilliance (just as arena is of monetary investment or longevity). Moreover, showing crowns and numbers of crowns beside player names is quite telling. I mean, imagine if BST, SP, and merges ceased to affect score and we did everything using elo rating? (Beating higher rated opponents helps increase your score; defense teams fluctuate in score depending on who surrenders to them and the estimated strength of that player) And if we could see a player's current arena offense elo rating instead of what tier they are in this week or how many crowns?

But your point about the gold accessories is very good, and helped me see how much it's a matter of players' perceptions, although it's worth noting that f2p guides take away from the meaning of these accessories somewhat.

As to a different competitive mode, I was suggesting a mode in which territory and turn counts don't matter. Smart players know how to be patient; I would consider TT speed scoring bogus if renewal wasn't a thing. The new mode could be 4v4 or 8v8 or even stuff like 4v6/4v8. In any case, the most important part is that defense players can throw whatever they want at us and nobody can cheese their way out by spamming BST and SP.

Your idea isn't bad either, see how far you get before infinite reinforcements run you down, but that has its own implications because it's not easy to put a healer on a 4-member team (easier now than in the past, but still not easy) and arena before bonus unit kill bonuses allowed for good one-and-done builds. I'm not convinced that sustain builds have some kind of objective superiority over one-and-done builds for which they should be rewarded. They just work better under certain conditions.

I was suggesting 8vs many, not 4. In teams of 8 it's easier to fit a healer or a debuffer/buffer. That mode would require it's own scoring system and if territory is not of your liking, then something else could be suggested.

I don't want an elo system like never though. Elo system required you to be glued to the game or have restricted tries. Since the later can't be true for arena (duel crests exist), then it means we will have to fight our way to the top by constantly fighting.

FEH is a game that doesn't demands much player investment. It knows it's a mobile game and aims at a more casual experience instead of the usual constant grind that other gacha games require. You can log in any day of the week and do your arena run and then forget about the mode exist and focus in other more fun stuff. I feel that's part of FEH success.

Every change IS has done in the past shows that. Log-in bonuses not forcing you to play daily to get the orbs, TT changes to allow players to get all rewards easily, FB changes to let players choose when to play without missing orbs, and some of the early arena changes like when we went from 7 matches to 5 or bonus units got stat boosts.

Changing arena into a grind fest would contradict their philosophy and scare away the casual players. I wouldn't support such a move.

It's an interesting point you bring up. I decided to look into the potential issue of rating inflation, because if it's a myth, then the only way people can move up once they have good units is by improving their tactics; playing more will only improve the system's read on your strength. I was pleased to find that there's a strong case to be made that rating inflation can be prevented. https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/1632/has-there-been-much-research-on-rating-inflation

I believe it is within the power of many players to accept where such a system shows them to be relative to other players. That's the point of such a system anyways, to describe player strength. And it discourages those trying to build a false sense of accomplishment using the bogus system we currently have.

Again, it is crucial that more attempts does not increase your rating; it only gives the system more data from which to figure out where you are relative to others.

It's actually even better than the current system because the current system allows people to restart as many times as duelling crests allow and their mistakes never mean anything except crests lost, and technically you can actually whale that, but even players who don't suffer little to none for losing units as long as they have more crests to hunt for matches, which would also be obsolete in an elo system.

They could set a minimum of 5 or 7 rated matches in a week in order to receive a reward at the end of the week, and for the rest, you can spend your crests on unrated matches (including vs anyone whose friend code you have) or play a few more rated matches if you feel that you underperformed in your first 5-7. Then those uninterested in arena can do their matches and leave, content that they have earned what rewards they could. But I think with more diversity of enemy units and a rating that reflects strategical ability rather than ability to pull, people would actually care more anyways.

I am not worried about inflation, I'm worried about not limiting the number of tries. You say it yourself "Again, it is crucial that more attempts does not increase your rating; it only gives the system more data from which to figure out where you are relative to others."

How are you planning on measuring player's strenght? The current system has proven that players can do 5-7 matches without dying.

So if let's say 10k players achieve that in a week, will all of them get the top rewards?

How is matchmaking going to work? Without BST and SP setting the strenght, are new players going to be paired up with whales?

Edit: for the Elo system to work, rank should be kept between seasons, right?

I wish I had been checking back for your replies. We were having a good discussion.

Every single match, players will gain or lose a small number of rating points. If you lose to a higher rated team, you don't lose much; if you lose to a lower rated team, you lose more points. And vice versa - if you lose to a lower rated team, you lose more points than if you lose to a higher-rated team. Teams that trick a lot of people will tend to accumulate a lot of points and rise up, at which point players who don't stand a chance will tend not to encounter them. So if you have strong enough units and the tactical skill, you can keep on climbing until you reach a point where the points you gain from winning matches and the points you lose from losing matches start to even out.

And I do think ratings should be maintained between seasons. We do have something similar in the current tier system.

Reward system can be done a number of ways, but just to offer an impromptu example, it could be done AA style. Players with top 1000 rating get (5 orbs and 3500 feathers, for example), players 1001-5000 get (4 orbs and 3000 feathers, for example), players 5001-10000 get _____, etc.

The advantage of such a system is that it has a better read on the frequency of your mistakes, which is part of how well you play. The current system makes easy to hide mistakes just by starting a new run.

It also allows people who are good at making arena defense teams to get rewarded better for it.