So here's the thing, I find the Arena really fun. Its very much like a live deckbuilder and I absolutely adore those kinds of games, tickles my fancy just right. That being said, there are two major gripes I have with the Arena:

1. Matches take sooooo long.
2. The rewards aren't great for the time invested.

Matches take anywhere from 15-30 minutes, usually on the longer side for me. Sometimes, its not even me playing either because I got knocked out in the first half, so I'm just waiting around for the rest of the match to finish up so I can get my ticket and move on. Its not particularly engaging in that regard.

Even when I place first, 5 tickets for a minimum of 15 minutes strategically playing well doesn't feel great either. To put it into context, to get one of the purple border tigers in the Arena shop, you would need 30 first place wins… and you're not guaranteed 30 wins by any means. But assuming you do, and taking a minimum 15 minute investment per match, you're looking at 7.5 hours of Arena to afford one tiger! Realistically it will be much longer though.

So with that in mind, I'll offer up two suggestions that I think might help:

1. Alternate queue for a 6 player version of Arena.
2. Rebalance ticket awards.

I think a huge element to the wasted time sink feeling to Arena is that there's 10 players, and most of the time at least 4 (usually more of them) are bots. I think an experimental, alternate queue with 6 players would feel much more snappier and less time wasted because it simply won't take as long. I'd also prefer if the alternate queue had a slightly longer match making time (3-4 minutes, maybe?) but prioritized filling more players in over filling it with bots. It doesn't really feel like PvP when I'm playing against 8 bots and 1 human who got knocked out on the first few rounds!

To add to the above, I'd like to see the rewards subsequently rebalanced. Basic idea would be to increase the ticket rewards for the 10 player queue, keep the 6 player awards as the current 10 player queue except maybe removing the pebble rewards for the 6 player queue. I'd happily play a shorter version just for tickets and the fun of it!

All of the above is just my experience and thoughts, of course. In general I just want the matches to feel rewarding for the length of time they take, and it doesn't have to be exactly the above suggestions. (also, if anyone knows if you can skip watching a match and still get your ticket if you get KO'd early, please let me know I am so tired of that lmao) Edit: apparently if I just read, you can leave once KO'd and you'll get your ticket once the match ends. So there's that!

Huge support, mostly for the smaller, faster option. Arena exhausts me quickly with the amount of quick thinking I need to do, so it's very easy to end up fatigued. A shorter option would be very nice.

You also don't get rewards if you leave early, per the tutorial, but if you're knocked out early you're better off just queuing again if you can consistently get a top rank.

big support!!

Support!

The Arena is super fun, that's given, but I think the rewards a bit low when compared to the price of things here-- heck WW or just wolves in general costs about 35k pebbles from what I see in the flea market :'(

Aaand yeah, matches takes as long as 30 mins and to only get 2k pebbles and 5x tickets as the grand price seems such a loss

I’ve been playing the arena a bit lately, and while the game is fun (once you figure out how it works), the rewards are way too low considering the time you put in. I’d like to see a significant rise in tickets and pebbles for the rewards.

Another nice reward could be if the game drops some pebbles each time you win a round (in addition to the rewards at the end). Getting an instant reward when winning a round would feel more satisfying, and if you have to leave the game early you would have still made some pebbles from your time spent in the arena.

In conclusion: the arena is fun but very time consuming, and the rewards should reflect that.

EDIT:

My suggested rewards:

• 1st place: 10 tickets + 8k pebbles
• 2nd: 8 tickets + 6k pebbles
• 3rd: 7 tickets + 5k pebbles
• 4: 5 tickets + 3k pebbles
• 5: 4 tickets + 2k pebbles
• 6: 3 tickets + 1k pebbles
• 7: 2 tickets + 500 pebbles
• 8: 1 ticket + 100 pebbles
• 9: none
• 10: none

In addition to that, each round you win would drop 100 pebbles.

Bumping this because I just spent 30 minutes in the arena and got 2 tickets and 500 pebbles…

The arena is a fun mini-game but I avoid playing it because the rewards simply aren’t worth the time I have to put in. Please increase the rewards to make the game feel less like a waste of time, or change the gameplay to make the game much shorter.

Support! I really like Arena, I genuinely have fun with it and it's a great way to learn about the Synergies. But the length of the matches is a deterrent. Sometimes it's just me and one other human in the lobby with the rest of the bots. I don't mind the bots and they're def necessary, but a smaller lobby and quicker games would be great.

Knowing how long it takes to get 3 star cards, I'm not sure a faster game would work as well as we'd like. I assume some balancing would have to be done. Idk what the answer to this is. Maybe reduce the max to 2 star cards if there are less turns overall? Just throwing spaghetti, Idk how feasible that is.

But yeah, support.

I support this even if I don't really like the arena. For me, the arena has been a big problem since beta. Arena is an interesting game mod in LW, but it suffers greatly for its lack of attraction toward players.

The rounds are very long and with very small rewards, and the bots are very hard for new or casual players.

I'll be honest, I don't like it because for me the bots are far too hard, and I've never met a single human on it. And going to discord to find players doesn't really do it for, I really like the "meet random player" bit.

I agree that Arena to work needs changes. Or shorter rounds with not too big reward, as you could chain the games easily. Or keep the long rounds but with big rewards, and even giving a reward to every player, even if it's a tiny one.

I also think the round should be limited in number of bot. Bot shouldn't be more than 30% or an arena roster. They should only be a filler just in case, not a replacement. Personally, I think meeting a lot of bots for a player is more detrimental to the experience than a message that says "sorry we could not any player this time. Please come back soon.". For me, bots have an effect of "oh again, bots? Meh, I'll quit and maybe come back later" and the more someone has encounters like that, the less they will play. And "later" slowly becomes "never".