If this isn’t the right section for this, Mods please move accordingly. Thanks. — K
Well, I didn’t QUITE complete my goal, but top 5 as a warrior is suffice. Ironically enough, it didn’t take months of farming floor 3945043950438 until my fingers fell off for the top gear like some people suggested. I made it using Level 200 Gear and a bunch of stones and crystals in under 2 months of play time. Not too shabby…
I was considering posting my build, but decided against it. Instead, I thought I’d offer a review on my thoughts of the “PVP” area called Battle Arena. Now, before you read and comment, please be aware that this is just my opinion and my thoughts. It isn’t by any means a “Right or Wrong” type review and will more than likely differ from someone else’s point of view. There will also be negative comments in regards to the game and I know there are a bunch of fans out there who might get offended. No offense is intended to anyone. This is just my opinion. I apologize ahead of time to anyone who gets offended. Just shrug it off…
Either way, this actually might give some new people some insight as to what to expect when they enter the Battle Arena and answer some questions that they may have.
Some notes before I begin:
The Battle Arena is listed as “Beta”. There will more than likely be changes down the road.
I highly suggest you read the FAQ regarding the Battle Arena for general Information.
So without further delay…
The Battle Arena is billed as “PVP”, but I think of it more like “Advanced PVE”. I was very disappointed to learn that you weren’t fighting other players, just their computer controlled versions. I read multiple threads on the forums where the reason for this is because not everyone has an internet connection and because of lag issues. I get it. Still, I was disappointed to learn you weren’t fighting other players. If you are looking for Hardcore PVP, you might want to look elsewhere or come back down the road to see what changes they have made. The AI setup is pretty nice and allows for some customization and feel to it, but it’s got bugs. First, I have seen some weird AIs bug out like spin uncontrollable in the middle of the circle. I saw some not even move at all. I don’t know what’s up with that. But after awhile, you can pretty much predict what the AI is doing as everyone starts using the same cookie cutter setup to win. Furthermore, after you set up your AI, you can’t actually test it. You pretty much have to guess or predict what you think the right distance is and hope you win. You could make a second character and go to the 2V2 Arena, but even that is iffy and you have to level up said character in order to get in (Not to menion, pay for another slot). In the end, you can’t test your AI at all on defense.
The first few levels of Battle Arena were fun, but once you hit Mythic and Eternal, you better be prepared for “Rogue Quest” not “Dungeon Quest”. When I hit top 5 I went back and counted. There were 71 Rogues in the top 100 and only 29 Warriors and Mages combined. By then, everyone has caught on and built the same Cookie Cutter style Rogues from Guideshot to Exploiting a bug known as Default (I am old school and call using a bug in game to win an Exploit) and Blinkstrike / Blind. I recorded two seperate fight strings of 89 and 75 matches. Combined out of 164 matches, 139 of them were against Rogues. You will once in awhile face an original build or a Mage and Warrior. To those, I have mad respect for. But in the end, everyone wants to win and just copies the flavor of the month Rogue Build. I prided myself on knowing that I never once faced a single person who was using the same setup of skills as me. Which leads me to the actual gear skills.
The skills in this game are great. It allows for a multitude of different combinations. The bad news is the vast majority of them are broke in the Battle Arena; which then leads to the same boring cookie cutter classes. Furthermore, you have no way of knowing what works or what doesn’t in game until you either experiment in game with stones that god knows how long took you to farm or come to the forums and research. There needs to be a serious revamp of the skills in the Battle Arena to make things fun and original. Not much more I can really comment on skills about. There are just a lot of broke skills.
Crowd Control (Stun, Blind, Taunt, Fear, Frozen) are nice, but for a 30 second fight I’d say they are abit over the top. There are Immunes in game, but at this point you have to farm endlessly to get them. (Except Frozen) The next patch is going to allow you to equip them using the Legends Affix Stone but it is random so good luck. I only had Stun and Frozen Immune on my gear and needed Blind And Taunt Immune to really finish off my build. Bottom line for a 30 second fight, I thought the crowd control was a bit over the top. If you don’t have Immune to a certain control be prepared to be Chain Froze / Stun / Blind / You name it. To some, that might steer them away from the game. I guess this is what makes the Rogue so popular.
One of the biggest gripes for me is that there is currently no in game method of stopping cheaters and exploiters. This is bad. On more than one occasion I have fought someone in the middle of a big win streak who was… let’s say… questionable. The only way to report cheaters is to screenshot and post on the forums. By that time, said cheater has already caused major damage in game by ruining others play experience. Now once you get to Eternal, it gets even easier to cheat. Your gear and stats show ??? to hide your build from other players. So you really CANT tell if they are cheating or not. I found that hilarious. There has to be some way of doing an “In Game Check” on gear and stats. I am no expert computer programmer and understand this is an Android Game not a PC game, so I am not sure. I understand there will always be cheaters in games. I don’t know really but it sure would be nice if there was at least SOME type of in game check or some attempt to keep the game honest. In the end you have to accept this for what it is: an offline game where cheaters and exploiters can opereate undetected. It is what it is…
Now in the Battle Arena, everyone is supposedly brought down to level 20; which is funny because I faced players with over 100K in HPs and over 1000 in damage. Now either these players have godly gear or they are cheating. I had just over 15K HPs and about 600 Power on Offense. That was pushing the limits and having maxed EVERYTHING 25% Quality and all skills maxed. I took one set of gear and put nothing but HP increases on it and went to the practice arena to check out my stats. I was only at 48K HPs. So I don’t know what is up with these builds. Either way there will be a lot of questionable stats there that make you wonder how they are achieved at level 20. I have no idea… you just have to take the loss with a smile and go on to the next. Like I said above, cheaters currently cannot be stopped in game. It is what it is…
The scoring system in the Mythic league is… weird. First, it doesn’t follow any normal pattern of math. You can try and figure it out until your nose bleeds but let me save you the time: it’s broke. Getting to Mythic is pretty cut and dry: fight enough to aquire points then you advance. However, in Mythic, you need to be in the top 100 to advance. This is where it gets funny. You can fight 10 matches and aquire 100 points and only move ahead by 10 ranks. but you lose once and take a 15 point loss and you drop 100 spaces. SO… 100 points = move ahead 10 slots, Lose only 15 points knocks you back 100 slots. Some will argue that this is because others are fighting too. OK… then how come I never move ahead at all? Isn’t there people ahead of me winning and advancing too? Magically nobody advanced while I was fighting to move me ahead, only to move me backwards. Furthermore, it is around the Mythic league where others have caught on and decided to play the cookie cutter Rogue builds. In the end I made it to where I was by designing a build specifically to beat Rogues. If I didn’t, I’d to this day probably be still stuck in Mythic. Once you get to Eternal you can actually see who is ahead of you and who is behind you so you can judge your progress. Regardless, your division rank and your record doesn’t mean squat. Just eye candy to post on the fridge. Most of my headaches in game in regards to the Battle Arena were trying to advance from Mythic to Eternal.
Finally there is the offline rewards and penalties. To this day, I still don’t understand why this is even in a part of the game labeled “PVP”. For those who don’t know what I mean, basically a player can set up a Godly AI using gear / exploits / Cheats / whatever and actually advance higher than the honest player who is actually fighting on offense. I am not making that up. Furthermore, if you DON’T have a super duper defense, when you log off for the night and log back in the next day, you will find yourself right back where you started the day prior or possibly worse - depending on how many players you faced while “Offline”. This doesn’t seem very “PVPish” to me. My idea of PVP is fighting other players who are controlled by other players. You should be rewarded more for actually playing the game in my opinion. It just seems pretty backwards to me right now. Also, this type of reward also opens the door once again to cheaters and exploiters. They can use hacked gear to basically stop a winning streak and there is no way of getting compensated or your points back. It can make for a frustrated experience, unless you cheat and exploit yourself. Like I said above, this type of game environment actually encourages someone to cheat.
Overall, I say the Battle Arena is a nice break from farming the same map over and over and over and over… but I’d hardly call it PVP. Take it with a grain of salt and hope that some good changes come down the road.
Thanks for reading. Like I mentioned above, this is just my opinion and no offense is meant. Hopefully some good can come of this and some changes can be made to make for some fun PVP experience.