Battle Arena Display Changes

There has been some confusion lately over how personal stats and loadouts are affecting Arena perks, and when those stats are locked in for the Arena. To help ease this confusion, and to allow you to optimize your arena experience, we're making a number of display changes to better expose this information. Please note: We have not changed how any of this works, we're simply changing how it's displayed to give you guys more information

The changes I'm describing will be viewable by clicking on your name in the Battle Arena Lobby, once you've signed up for an Arena. These stats will change based on your loadout and skill allocation, so you can see how the various perks are affected by any changes you make before the Arena.

We've also changed the arena sign-up screen, which you can see below. As you can see, you will now have the option to pick your character picture upon entering the arena. This won't affect your actual character selection in-game, just the picture that appears in the arena.



Below is a screenshot of the upcoming display changes on your arena profile area, and I'll break down the individual areas below.



1. You will be able to change your Arena name up until the time the arena starts. Update: Names will now only be able to use alphanumeric characters (i.e. no spaces.) This minor change will help improve Arena stability, and we appreciate your understanding.

2. You will also be able to change your character picture to any of the 6 starter characters or a character that you've purchased that's currently in use. These aren't directly related to the issues I mentioned above, but were community suggestions that we've been meaning to implement for a while.

3. Here you can see the specific stats for your Health, Defense, and Attack perks. Again, these will change depending on your loadout/skills allocation, so play around with them to ensure you have the desired perks for the arena. Remember though, that once the arena starts, these perks will be locked in, and won't be changeable until the next arena.

4. Here you can see a detailed breakdown of your different attack and defense strengths. This will also update when changed up until the arena starts.

5. A reminder that these stats are locked in once the arena starts. Brief note: There have been a number of players lately who've mentioned issues with defense stance times being lower than what they're used to. There was a bug that was fixed recently with defense stance using your current loadout as opposed to the stats snapshot like it was supposed to. We apologize for any confusion this bug caused, and we hope that the ability to see how loadouts affect stance times will help clear up any remaining confusion.

There will also be detailed information available in Arena Help once you've signed up, which is clickable below your profile name on the main Arena page.

All of the above display changes have been implemented today, and you should be able to see the additional information in the places that I've mentioned.

Currently Under Evaluation: Something we've been testing out with recent arenas is the ability to make multiple attacks with one mouse click (similar to power attacks in the regular game.) For example, if you set the slider to 3, each time you click attack you'll use 3 stamina, and will be making 3 attacks on your opponent. This was a community-requested feature that came out of quite a bit of feedback. We will be monitoring each arena, and will look to implement the feature into other arenas depending on how it's received.

We're extremely excited for these changes, as they've all come from community feedback about the arena. We believe they will help ease any confusion about perks and allow a greater degree of control over your arena experience. As always, if you have any questions about these changes, please post them below!

Update: There was also a small change made that no longer allows players to select revealing their identity during the arena. Even when this was selected, a player's name wasn't revealed until the end of the arena, so the option is now only available once a player has been knocked out, or the arena ends.

Update 2: It turns out I was incorrect about how name revealing worked previously, and I apologize for the confusion. The name-reveal toggle was removed to address a semi-frequent bug, however given that players seem to appreciate the option in-arena, we have added the toggle back in. To address the bug, we've added a one-minute restriction on the toggle which shouldn't affect most players.

Update 3: I've updated the Multiple-Attack feature description.

 

I definitely like having the ability to see what affect changes we make will have before the arena actually starts. I also like the idea of having a more detailed explanation of how perks work.

I like having the ability to change ones name but does this come at a price? If it does ..im not really feeling it because if someone had a change of heart about using an offensive name a fee may work as a deterrent to doing so. If and when a better system is put in place to rid the arena of these offensive names...I think I would feel a bit better about a fee (assuming there is one).

The ability to change ones profile pic makes me yawn as it doesnt do much good in regard to anonymity except for a very small number of players on the cusp of being either totally recognizable or in among the indistinguishable masses. Theres but a handful of players that can be easily recognized...this update does nothing to change that, basically the second tier of high levels get the benefit, the lowers will still be anonymous and the highest levels hung out to dry again(go figure). I suppose it offers up a lil choice but the fact that the avatars are the same as they are in-game it doesnt really allow for much individualism(would have been a great opportunity for some more cool artwork). But hey....if Kano can make a few coin off players foolish enough to think changing their pic is gonna help...Im all for it. Hopefully they put it to good use. In the meantime I will just sit here patiently and wait for an update that actually helps and/or rewards the upper levels instead of omitting or out right screwing them.

The beta update for PC has me intrigued. On the surface it sounds like a cool idea. But of course....I have questions. You compared it to the battle slider...does that mean we will continuously have to keep resetting hit even while hitting the same target? Or is more like a power attack on a boss that stays engaged until we change it? I certainly hope its more like the boss power attack or it will end up taking more time than just clicking one attack at a time. If like the boss power attack how will it work when it comes time for the death blow? If I only need 1 attack for the kill shot but I use the power attack...will it only use the stam i needed for the kill? If it uses all 5 stam regardless of whether i only needed to use 1 or 2....will I still get the XP and potential drops...much like on a boss in the reg game?


Overall I like most of the updates but it the end they are but a shallow victory in that no matter what u do to the arena it will always be over shadowed by the fact that winning one is diminished by the lack of an achievement for doing so. The best of these updates being the ability to see the results of our fine tuning before the start of an arena will surely in time allow even more to win an arena. I have no problem with that but Ive also no doubt based on dev comments that when that happens we will most likely get achievements for winning an arena which only diminishes even further what is truly an achievement by all those that paved the way. Winning an arena is a huge achievement especially when one considers the massive handicaps imposed on the more powerful in conjunction with the leg up given to the less powerful. Eventually there will be a multitude of diff winners of the arena and winning one will no longer be as impressive because of the sheer number that will have done it....it makes zero sense to not award an achievement for winning now.

 

well before FIXING bugs i think we as players should be notified, the fact that we could change the length of time in def dependant on loadout is tactical play and is down to the player. I seriously think you should trial the BA because it seems to me (being my own personal view) that you guys dont know how it actually affects us as players, you see it as developers regardless of wether you have people "trialling" it or not.

30 mins defence then nearly 1hr regeneration time in this game is NOT enough when it runs for 3 days!!!

I applaud your work and effort but i think you need to start asking players before changes or what needs updating.

 

The FB PC arena does not last 3 days.

 

@Polish We'll be doing a smaller separate post about the multi-attack feature soon to provide a few more details, as I'm sure other players have similar questions.

@Aceman I absolutely agree that that we can do a better job of letting players know about upcoming features and fixes and this is something we're always working on . As for the defensive stance, how the perk is set up is how it was designed and intended to be used. With the display updates, players will now be able to see how their loadout affects their stance times, and be able to decide if they want a shorter time but stronger attack perk, or longer time but weaker attack perk, etc.

 

I appreciate the reply and look forward to reading further details. Will it cost to change are arena names?

 

@Polish Nope, you're free to edit it as many times as you'd like until the arena starts, cost-free. Once the arena starts, you're locked into your name until the next arena, the same as before the update.

 

Very cool...ty kind sir.

 

Looking at that picture I only see old avatars.

If avatar is arena only then why not have the newer ones as choices?

Some are unable to use a space in the name.

Is this intentional?

 

i welcome many changes you made but like to clear something up
in past ba's you were able to reveal your identity during the battle i and many have done this so others know who we are when we chain out
so thats incorrect that the reveal didn't actually show until battle ended
also the def stance has changed and now only 48 mins instead of 1.48
im happy with def being reduced as it stops people hiding in def all the time
but im not happy about being unable to reveal who you are during the battle
i think that part is up to the player and should stay in
otherwise i am very happy with the other changes that have been made

Update: There was also a small change made that no longer allows players to select revealing their identity during the arena. Even when this was selected, a player's name wasn't revealed until the end of the arena, so the option is now only available once a player has been knocked out, or the arena ends.[/QUOTE]

this part is definitely incorrect as i explained above in my previous post

 

@TP As I mentioned above, you can use a newer character picture if you have one selected for your character, as you can see from my example image. Arena names can now only use alphanumeric characters (i.e. no spaces). As strange as it sounds, this minor change will help with Arena stability, which we felt was worth the grammatical trade-off. I'll update the post to make this more clear, thanks for pointing it out.

@Fusheng You are correct about the name-reveal toggle, and I apologize for the confusion. I have added a second update that explains that we'll be adding the toggle back in with a minor restriction to address the reason we took it out in the first place.
As for the defense-stance time, nothing has actually changed with how that's calculated, and players should be able to achieve similarly-high stance times with defense-heavy loadouts. The only change made was the removal of a bug that caused defense stance to use your current loadout as opposed to the stats snapshot like it was supposed to.

 

We'll see just how that helps stability.

Not seeing how.


Don't be surprised if more complain about that one.

 

lol protector is complaining already and it aint even had a chance lol

 

Your right since a space should be allowed as it always has been.

Seems pretty pointless.

 

The BA goes a lot quicker at this rate. 10 stamina per attack is too much. lol

Edit: It's a lot easier to get kills but harder to get the number of attacks in.

 

I got took down from 750 million health to 0 in around 30 seconds or a minute, the person did about 30 million a hit, it takes away so much fun of the arena and just about all of the challenge in the arena.

 

@TP As I'm sure you can appreciate, we prioritize game performance over grammar issues. We're confident that players will be able to figure out that "IAmTheMostAwesome" means "I Am The Most Awesome".

@Tony I've started an official feedback thread for players to discuss the feature, feel free to let us know what you think there!

 

hey i found something funny that is appearing when you type a name more then 20 characters(oh ya and it doesn't say that your name has to be between 1-20 characters anymore)it says your name is too short but i think it is supposed to say your name is to long

 

Check out our summary of the multi-attacks feature feedback and our change for the next Arena here.

 

A little typo:

Defense Perk:

This perk modifies how much damage you receive when in defensive stance, the time duration allocated for defensive stance as well as the wait time to re-enable defensive stance after it times out. The greater percentage of your skill points allocated in defense will improve these defensive perks. You currently have 25 - 27.5% of your skill points allocated to Attack.

It should be points allocated to Defense.