Is Arena Dying?

[Rammus]

Compared to now back in the lvl 45 days arena ratings were high and loads of people were playing it day in day out. Look at it now, only "try harders" left. I think there are multiple reasons why people dont play arena anymore:

-First of all if u want money SSP is better so why bother to go arena? Used to be a decent income, now its crap.

-The XP is equally bad. Rly rly bad!

-The weekly/season rewards from arena are basically completly worthless.

-The hackers even tho they are mostly gone by now scared loads of people away from playing arenas.

-People Quiting the game and the population is getting smaller every day. I think we all feel it.

-Even PvP tournaments are starting to stop

 

Now you all know how much time, dedication and energy it takes to actually get good at arena pvp. How much effort it takes to actually get to hit the rank u want for the week or for the season. Does it worth getting involved for the average player? No it does not.

If this keeps up it wont take long for arenas to completly die out.

 

Something must be done! Some1 must make arena worth to play again like it used to be at lvl 45. We need way better weekly/season rewards and far more XP!

[N3ro]

You know if you´re not "try harding" at least a little bit i honestly have no clue how arena can even be fun in the first place! It´s not fun if you don´t have any idea what so ever whats happening to you... You´ll just rage quit because you keep dying 100-0. At least now that people kind of learned how to play the game. So i think a lot of people just quit, because it was 'too unbalanced' aka too hard for them. For the most part balancing is not that horrible.

 

And then there probably are some rating dicks that are quitting, because getting class rank 70 does no longer give them a diamond medal... It kinda should not. It did, because people where trying arena all of them and there where a lot of bots as well. Less than in NA, but still. Just don´t care that much about your medal it really does not matter all that much. Being rank 70 diamond is worse than being rank 20 plat now.

 

I don´t think arena is dying...

 

XP rewards should be increased for arena though. It´s absolutely impossible to level up through pvp. If you only did pvp until now you´re probably hm4 +/- 1 or something. While others who did pve are hm 8-10.

[Qel]

As seen in KR there are virtually no diamond plat anymore and we might see this situation coming in the west soon enough if it continues on this slope... but in lower ranks bean income is low and not worth the effort anymore.

[Suna]

Arena is not nearly as rewarding than what it was in lvl 45. Lvl 45 you earn probably more money from pvp than pve and xp was fine since hm 5 require something like 3,7m xp? Now hm 10 is over 30m xp. Before you get 3200 xp from one win and now 3700 xp from one win. Xp in arena have increased around 13%, but hm levels require 9x more xp than before. 

[Infamous]

yes arena is dying, which is sad. There really used to be higher ranks, now at end of season - not many diamonds (I don't count win traders). Not to mention that barely  (maybe even no) new people go to arena. It is really getting boring seeing same people in top ranks, it's like no new blood, if those people quit - nothing left. At least how I see now, a lot of good pvp players are leaving bns. They sometimes log in just few arenas, but not as passionate as they used to be. Mostly the reasons they leave are level (you really need skill points), HM skills (if pvers don't want to pvp they don't have to, while  pvpers have to in order to get skills and buying from vendor is insane since the prices are sky high), previous cheaters waves (it did the part to make people leave) and last but not least, low numbers of arena participants (people really get tired fighting the same guy over and over and over again, The higher rank you are, the more common this deja vu gets).

Xp rewards are really dumb. At 45 you could level up with arena, now - 3k xp for win, only 6,997,000 xp left :D I mean even some pvers went to arena just because of nice quick xp.

 

As for KR, people say that in korea the community is more competative, that is why their gold = our diamond, but that's just how I heard can't tell how much of this is true.

[Suna]

3 minutes ago, Infamous said:

 

 

As for KR, people say that in korea the community is more competative, that is why their gold = our diamond, but that's just how I heard can't tell how much of this is true.

That is pretty much true. Jaesung streamed 2 days ago BM(in kr) and it was not easy reach gold there. Yesterday he streamed lvl 45 kfm in na with his bad ping and still reach gold easily without much effort.

[Archess]

9 minutes ago, Infamous said:

yes arena is dying, which is sad. There really used to be higher ranks, now at end of season - not many diamonds (I don't count win traders). Not to mention that barely  (maybe even no) new people go to arena. It is really getting boring seeing same people in top ranks, it's like no new blood, if those people quit - nothing left. At least how I see now, a lot of good pvp players are leaving bns. They sometimes log in just few arenas, but not as passionate as they used to be. Mostly the reasons they leave are level (you really need skill points), HM skills (if pvers don't want to pvp they don't have to, while  pvpers have to in order to get skills and buying from vendor is insane since the prices are sky high), previous cheaters waves (it did the part to make people leave) and last but not least, low numbers of arena participants (people really get tired fighting the same guy over and over and over again, The higher rank you are, the more common this deja vu gets).

Xp rewards are really dumb. At 45 you could level up with arena, now - 3k xp for win, only 6,997,000 xp left :D I mean even some pvers went to arena just because of nice quick xp.

 

As for KR, people say that in korea the community is more competative, that is why their gold = our diamond, but that's just how I heard can't tell how much of this is true.

Don't forget that for some unknown reasons many people have huge lag spikes in arena, just like me, at first i tought i was just bad at it and needed to git guud, then when i dug deeps it seems i am lagging really really bad only on crosservers & arena servers, that coupled with 1 Disconnect every 2-3 arena matches = auto loss, while i never disconnected anywhere else, really puts a downers on my arena experience.

 

It is virtually not possible to pass gold for me due to the disconnects i am suffering from, so why should i keep trying ?

[Archess]

7 minutes ago, Suna said:

That is pretty much true. Jaesung streamed 2 days ago BM(in kr) and it was not easy reach gold there. Yesterday he streamed lvl 45 kfm in na with his bad ping and still reach gold easily without much effort.

They have also been playing the game for 3+ years, most of the top pvp'rs on NA/EU have also played BnS extensivly before it came out here, sure there are some people that are naturally good, but you cannot just pick up a BM and get Diamond because you have 20ms faster reflexes then the other guy.

[GodofWrath]

It's already dead. Let's see, majority of the players are in silver rank and losing a match rewards you what, 9 beans. "9". So why would a sane person bother playing in that shitty arena? Also most of silver players are summoners or assassins which means their opponent is either a brain-dead keyboard smash class or constant stealth stupidity.

On 18.05.2016 at 1:29 PM, Archess said:

They have also been playing the game for 3+ years, most of the top pvp'rs on NA/EU have also played BnS extensivly before it came out here, sure there are some people that are naturally good, but you cannot just pick up a BM and get Diamond because you have 20ms faster reflexes then the other guy.

Also this. You can't expect new players to win against these free-beans classes. It is beyond stupid but fck it. Let them fck up their own game.

[N3ro]

3 hours ago, GodofWrath said:

It's already dead. Let's see, majority of the players are in silver rank and losing a match rewards you what, 9 beans. "9". So why would a sane person bother playing in that shitty arena? Also most of silver players are summoners or assassins which means their opponent is either a brain-dead keyboard smash class or constant stealth stupidity.

Also this. You can't expect new players to win against these free-beans classes. It is beyond stupid but fck it. Let them fck up their own game.

But that´s only for new players who are starting NOW though, 'new players' who have started on launch should very well be able to deal with it by now. And real new players should also be able to learn it, it´s just practice. If you like pvp and you know blade and soul, then you have probably tried it already though, because well... it´s f2p. There just are not a lot of good pvp mmos out there. There is like what? Tera? Sure, Teras 3v3 is actually awsome as opposed to this games 3v3, witch is just some messed up 1v1 game mode, BUT if you think bns arena is dead already, then i fail to find words for Teras 3v3 really... This games arena will never be truely dead, because you only need 2 players to meet and oyu have a match.

Rewards are kinda retardedly low nowadays though. Like currently trying to get hm rmb threw beans for god knows why i know it´s cheaper for ss, but then i also would have to do some random instance to get 300 pages... and i have 25... #pvehero

I also must be pretty retarded considering how much i randomly spar people... much helps with rewards!

[Rammus]

 Just have to make arena rewarding:

 

-5 times more XP / win

-lot more beans / win even on low elo

-far better weekly and season rewards

 

Surely this would make people come back and play. Generally it would make playing arena worth it!

Down with SSP grinding srly... Why is my only option if i want to improve my gear to farm SSP 24/7 ? Why is my only option to do daily quests 24/7 if want HM levels? How am I going to find time to actually play arena and have some fun?

[KlausFlouride]

It's been dead for a long time. That region chat used to be very busy with people trash talking and asking for matches, now it's a ghost town. It takes me 10-15 min to find a 3v3, 1v1 is usually quick. WW Valley is a total joke, the only time I can find a match is when it's on the DC and that's not a guarantee. I sat there for 15 min one day with a team. The game now locks you into a game now so you can't cancel. I ended up pulling my network connection, reloading and going to farm some such thing.

[Shiune]

For 1vs1 you usually get a matchup within 1min ( if you're not in the top 20 or so at least). 

 

For 3vs3 I had to wait quite some time yesterday on 1700 rating while my FM alt got a matchup pretty fast on 1500.

 

Whirlwind Valley is mostly completely dead if it's not in the daily challenge. 

[JarCo]

Please NCSolt make arena profitable. Dont kill this awesome game... BibleThump

[Brainy]

The main problem for me is the lag spikes. I like arena a lot, but when I can't use my escape even though I spam it (skill lights up, but nothing happens) - then I get air combo'd so I just lose HP for nothing - that makes me want to give up. And I did, at least until they fix their shit (EU).

I sent many tickets to support showing the difference to other servers and how the spikes happen on their end (even made a post on General discussions section), but they don't seem to care and all they do is use their copy-pasta skills. This is just plain sad. Seems like EU is the underdog once again...

 

TL DR: I don't play arena because of lag.

[SilentOne]

15 minutes ago, Brainy said:

The main problem for me is the lag spikes. I like arena a lot, but when I can't use my escape even though I spam it (skill lights up, but nothing happens) - then I get air combo'd so I just lose HP for nothing - that makes me want to give up. And I did, at least until they fix their shit (EU).

I sent many tickets to support showing the difference to other servers and how the spikes happen on their end (even made a post on General discussions section), but they don't seem to care and all they do is use their copy-pasta skills. This is just plain sad. Seems like EU is the underdog once again...

 

TL DR: I don't play arena because of lag.

exactly. I'm ok with losing pvp cuz my lack of skill or cuz opponent is just better. But everytime when i lose cuz of delay/lag i feel the anger flow. I live in central Europe and i never had such issues with connection, my ping cap in any other game is 50ms max.

[Shiune]

Yeah loosing because of laggs or disconnects is the worst. 

 

I also get boosted af if this happens to me.

 

There is this quote: "videogames doesn't make you violent, lag does" and this is damn accurate lol. 

[KhaosThanathan]

Two reasons Arena sucks nowadays:

• unrewarding
• unbalanced (HM-skills, difference in skillpoints)

[LiquidRev]

On 5/15/2016 at 7:24 AM, Rammus said:

Compared to now back in the lvl 45 days arena ratings were high and loads of people were playing it day in day out. Look at it now, only "try harders" left. I think there are multiple reasons why people dont play arena anymore:

-First of all if u want money SSP is better so why bother to go arena? Used to be a decent income, now its crap.

-The XP is equally bad. Rly rly bad!

-The weekly/season rewards from arena are basically completly worthless.

-The hackers even tho they are mostly gone by now scared loads of people away from playing arenas.

-People Quiting the game and the population is getting smaller every day. I think we all feel it.

-Even PvP tournaments are starting to stop

 

Now you all know how much time, dedication and energy it takes to actually get good at arena pvp. How much effort it takes to actually get to hit the rank u want for the week or for the season. Does it worth getting involved for the average player? No it does not.

If this keeps up it wont take long for arenas to completly die out.

 

Something must be done! Some1 must make arena worth to play again like it used to be at lvl 45. We need way better weekly/season rewards and far more XP!

You may notice from my posts that I am one of those people who have left. I am lucky enough to now identify when a developer has no control or begins ignoring the problem. I myself left a day after the floor 8 Mushin Towers came out. 

It took me a while to learn, but it is a difficult concept to grasp. After pouring your heart and soul into a game and having to admit its eventual defeat is tough. Arena is probably not dead and it may take a while, but it will likely end up much like Archeage did. 

 

Games like Warhammer Online, Archeage, Final Fantasy Online (first one)  all had the same results. The developers were too late to respond, ignored it for too long or simply didn't know what to do. 

 

But you hit the nail on the head. BNS has been stamped and branded as a game with scores of hackers, bots and spammers and we live in an age now where the attention span of a gamer can go anywhere. 

 

 

BNS still makes for a great game, but I doubt I will ever fall for an NCSoft game again. 

 

 

 

[Mastrof]

Before Silverfrost you made a lot of money in arena, was very good for farming i remember that in 1 day on weekends, being diamond, i made 200-300 SS, and in one moment price was 30 silver, was a fortune. Now that SSP is out and you can get a pair of 30+ SS bundles in one run farming (30 minutes) + moonstone + keys, it has no chance if you compare the rewards, basically, the entire world of BnS has no chance, the mejority of the game is concentrated in one place, its nonsense.

SSP killed arena, SSP killed or put the final stab to faction system, SSP ruin it all, or how developers thinked about it.

Even the new and great 6v6 is dead if you see it in the days that isnt in daily challenge.

Rewards are crap, if you are in top 300 of your class they give you shitty exp charms per week, and if you are in tops a naryu tablet that is worth nothing.

 

[Shuchin]

I have no general complaints about arena but agree with most people here that rewards need to be reconsidered for arena. If beans are too tied in with special rewards ike skill books to change the bean rate, at least add some gold / soulstones / exp. ^_^

[N3ro]

 

I´ll just leave this here. (No that´s not me. Credits to Yuketsu.)

[DomiSotto]

I am a completely average player, and I like playing arenas, even if silver/low gold is all I am going to get. In principle. The reality is that with all the other things that you need to do to gear up and secure income to get gear and the skill books there is simply no time left to play arenas. Daily Challenge, Misty and SSP basically takes all the time I can get per day. And SSP is a lot of fun, with odd encounters and more social :)

 

The idea that HM skills can be obtained via Arena is greatly appealing to me, but in a low rated category it will basically take as long as in the PvE content, basically - never.

 

When I do queue up, my experience is by far less fun than it used to be 2 months ago when I started.

 

Because I am so bad, and play really sporadically (maybe a couple times a month) the only days I can get any sort of even matches are during the daily challenges events, on all other days I just get obliterated in two moves, despite all the ELO matching. I don't mind being a noob, as long as I am matched against another noob, so we actually have a fight. When I started, the fights were prolonged, and I could see how the difficulty of winning increased progressively, until I reached the ELO where people where consistently stronger than I was and dropped me down, which was fine. I could see how if I tried, I could work myself a little higher. But now it's completely unpredictable and I can literally  get stunned and dead and not resisting for the second round makes it faster, and that's literally in low silver?  I am not sure what this guy is doing in silver at all?!

 

Other thing is, the game does not mix and match players a lot, so you just keep facing the same guy who has already obliterated you into oblivion. The thought that I might have to fight another Blade Dancer is really makes me thing "I'd rather not".  :)

 

 

So, okay, even if I eat all the losses with a smile on my pretty face, Just as I sort of start getting an idea about what I could try... well, I am out of time, and there will be days before I find time for PvP again. And look! I've gotten 1K beans! Oookay... yeah. I'd have been better of playing solo dailies in Silverfrost.

 

Heh, the last time I played, I was trying to earn 5K beans on my warlock, and I want to block out the day I played on him on level 42.... that's the only reason to play the arenas right now, to get an HM skill on a new character. And I ended up with 1,9K beans and somehow did not requeue even though I do need those 5K.

[Mastrof]

Also the rate of wining points and losing points its insane, you can be hours trying to lvl up ranking and then in 3 matches lose all that. Like sometimes u lose near of 20 points.

im also 1700 in tag, 1707, and some times i am 10 minutes queue +, before i used to derank when i got to platynum in tag

[Yashuoa]

On ‎15‎-‎5‎-‎2016 at 1:24 PM, Rammus said:

Compared to now back in the lvl 45 days arena ratings were high and loads of people were playing it day in day out. Look at it now, only "try harders" left. I think there are multiple reasons why people dont play arena anymore:

-First of all if u want money SSP is better so why bother to go arena? Used to be a decent income, now its crap.

-The XP is equally bad. Rly rly bad!

-The weekly/season rewards from arena are basically completly worthless.

-The hackers even tho they are mostly gone by now scared loads of people away from playing arenas.

-People Quiting the game and the population is getting smaller every day. I think we all feel it.

-Even PvP tournaments are starting to stop

 

Now you all know how much time, dedication and energy it takes to actually get good at arena pvp. How much effort it takes to actually get to hit the rank u want for the week or for the season. Does it worth getting involved for the average player? No it does not.

If this keeps up it wont take long for arenas to completly die out.

 

Something must be done! Some1 must make arena worth to play again like it used to be at lvl 45. We need way better weekly/season rewards and far more XP!

I did some pvp at lvl 15 (lol) won 1, lost 1.

Now at lvl 49 I did some pvp again (couldnt wait for 50 :P) and I can understand why arena may ''die out'' as you say.

 

I am in gold now after some games, however the general lvl I met as a lvl 49 fm were people with several hm lvls, like hm7.

That is really discouraging to face. Winning from such a player feels good though, but even so, its more often frustrating to face due to the gap in power (and exp prolly).

 

Isnt there some system which tries to match people as close as can be to your lvl and rating?

 

I had not expected to face mostly hm+ like 5+as a lvl 49 fm who started at the bottom with some games.

Also I dont really understand what those high hm lvls are doing in silver and gold. Which is the entry lvl basically.
Is that due to a Saturday? Do I get matched vs them due to lack of people? Or they are just low rating?

 

But when you want to get into arena pvp and learn, than it would help if you dont get matched in the starting games, with people who have almost completed all their hm lvls :P.

Do other people not play arena?

 

Some classes are fairly easy to get into as entry lvl and have quite some room for error, whereas others do not.

 

Also I wouldnt mind a bit more prep time before the arena starts. Sometimes I cant get my points right in time. I may get faster with experience but I have seen vids from pvpers who either are just done in the nick of time with their points or quickly finishing a few right when the arena has started. So I may not be the only one who finds the prep time very short.

Also as people mentioned. The rewards are very little in arena and having to do this on top of pve grinding and such, can cost lot of time.
So if Arena has more rewards like more xp and other stuff, than people would probably enter more.

Things as described above my play a role in arena ''dying out''.

 

Pve and open world pvp should be about difference in hm lvls and hongmoon books and such, but arena pvp should be equal.

As  a lvl 50 you should have everything unlocked in arena imo. That would even things out more and will encourage more people to enter.

Oh yeah and more prep time :).

 

p.s.

Do you people have as well, that after some games, arena sometimes suddenly starts to lag like crazy and than you need to restart the game to get rid of it?

I never had that outside of arena.