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Five Thoughts on New Arena (Patch 10.4)

tl;dr. Overall, Patch 10.4 changes to the Arena was huge win for drafting, but a pretty big loss for Arena gameplay. Hope the problematic parts of this system gets tweaked before Witchwood!

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A few thoughts on the new Arena system from the perspective of an Arena vet and keeper of the Lightforge Arena Tier List and Lightforge Arena Podcast:

1. Drafting in Sets of Equal Power Level is Better, Period. I think anyone who's done an Arena draft in the new system will agree. This is better. Blizzard may not be getting all the sets exactly right, but it's a vastly more interesting system resulting in more real choices in the draft. This cannot be understated. This is also the one great change that's somewhat masking all the other major flaws of the new system that have nothing to do with this fundamental change, although Arena vets in /r/ArenaHS have certainly picked up on it.

2. Too Many Legendaries Results in Lower Skill in Gameplay. Currently, according to HSReplay data, 9%+ of decks in the Arena have at least one Lich King. You've probably also noticed that powerful Legendaries in general are being offered much more frequently than before. This is a separate system and separate decision from the overall drafting changes. One does not require the other. This change makes Arena victories much more based on who lucks out on the powerful legendaries (both in draft, and more importantly in whether they are drawn in the game), lowering the skill impact of the Arena. It's also far less special to see one, taking away much of the fun of drafting a Lich King, or seeing one be played against you. When you make Legendaries common, they stop feeling Legendary. I understand this has always been the case in constructed, but please don't bring that to the Arena. Arena is home of the Chillwind Yeti. Didn't Blizzard learn anything from all that Death Knight outrage over the summer? Huge game-swings based entirely on drawing a card and making it to turn 8 are not fun. Arena players near universally dislike this change. Do casual players even like this? Maybe constructed players?

3. Too Many Powerful Cards Results in Lower Skill in Gameplay. Blizzard made an interesting decision here. Rather than balance offering rates around the middle, a "balanced card", to make a balanced game, dropping offering rates as values get too high (volatile) or too low (feelsbad), they decided to make a system where offering rates are highest for the best cards in the game, scaling down. Because sets are now offered in equal value, we can use HSReplay to see the disparity. Spikeridge Steed is seen in 62% of Paladin decks, while Arrogant Crusader is seen in 12.3% of decks. Even accounting for selection bias at the top, Steed competitors Equality and Vinecleaver are still each seen in 45% of decks. That's a HUGE disparity between selection of top cards and average cards, upsetting the balance in the Arena. Top cards are always blatantly overpowered, and cause huge swings in the game in favor of those who draw it, swings that are difficult to be tempered by good play. The Lightforge Tier List uses a 1:1 scale in raw power level determined from an algorithm based purely on what the card does (no win rate info), and I consider any card rated 150 (aka: +50% an average card) to cause game-winning swings, and any card 200 (aka: +100% an average card) to be unsalvagably OP if drawn. Vinecleaver is ~200, Steed and Equality are ~150. It is not a GOOD thing to have more of these cards. Two negatives in HS do not make a positive. If everyone has more of these tools, that does not make the game LESS determined by who draws these cards, but MORE determined by this. The regular skills of managing trades, tempo, card advantage, health, can only go so far, and these cards by their design break this paradigm down. Gameplay skill has been reduced in 10.4 dramatically from this change, and the effect of edging out your opponent by 6-8 tempo/card advantage points over the course of the game, which in Classic meta was 85%+ determinate of outcome, is now maybe 65%. This doesn't feel good, and limits the upside of improving in the Arena. Is that fun? I'm not exactly qualified to comment on fun, but it better be REALLY fun, because the costs in gameplay skill impact is huge. To Arena vets, this meta feels like the Dual-Classes Halloween event mostly for this reason, and reason #3. Some change needs to be made here.

4. Lack of Transparency Results in Lower Skill in Gameplay. I'm not going to beat this dead horse (too much). It's been brought up repeatedly by so many (every single?) Arena players now over the course of the last year. Blizzard has still not provided any indication of what the rules of the Arena are, since they started changing individual card offering values by hidden percentages in June 2017. At first, they didn't even tell us they were doing it. Then, it was micro-adjusts up to 5%, which eventually turned into up to 40% (again, without Blizzard acknowledgement, but based on HSReplay data). Now, every single card for every single class is effectively macro-adjusted, by incredibly huge margins (bad cards never seen, 1.5 Steeds per deck). And we still do not have any information how what the offering odds actually are. Also, unsuprisingly, what Blizzard tells us is again, wrong. In the developer video for Patch 10.4 changes, it was noted that offering adjustments to spells/weapons and everything else would remain in tact, and only the rarities would be mixed and "below average" cards seem less frequently. But, clearly from HSReplay data, the spells/weapons bonus is gone (or at least more than halved), and it's not only "below average" cards that have been adjusted down, but there seems to be a scale where top cards are offered more. That makes it very difficult to draft intelligently in anticipation, and very difficult to anticipate what remains in your opponent's decks for gameplay skill. This probably isn't something casual players care or worry about, but both in constructed and arena, knowing your opponent's deck is a crucial skill in HS. Now, in Arena, this is hidden, fuzzed, and in all likelihood changing frequently with no notice as the system is adjusted. Considering the art of anticipation is half the higher level skills in the Arena, after you learn the basic fundamentals, this is a huge loss in the skill pool in Arena. Keep in mind, that this is not a skill loss that has been replaced in any way in Arena gameplay. While drafting may require more skill overall now, buffered by the new positive drafting system, the same cannot be said for gameplay. Instead, there is a huge void where half the advanced skills in Arena used to be.

5. Implementing Equal Tier List Deck Scores, Now That We Have the Technology. Here's a puzzler. Now that we have the technology to make all decks the same tier list value, and let skill in drafting determine how good our decks end up, how well archetyped or well synergized, or well balanced the result is. . . Blizzard chose to not do this. Instead, drafting is STILL random at the level of sets. Some drafts will be offered much better sets than others. Not all drafts will have the same tier list value decks. That's odd to me. Seems like a simple way to increase skill and gameplay impact in the Arena by removing unnecessary RNG variance that was passed up. And, see #4 above, gameplay skill is in dire need of some help in the new Arena.

Overall, #1 has made such a huge and positive impact on the Arena draft, that it's sad to see the actual Arena gameplay suffer so much from patch 10.4. And, most of it is completely unnecessary, but rather as a result of implementation decisions/oversights by Blizzard. As this is the first iteration of the new system, I'm sure Blizzard will be making tweaks to the new system. But I really hope they don't let the well deserved positive reviews of the drafting system in #1 blind them to the fact that the bulk of the gameplay in Arena has gotten worse overall, and not better, from the change. And, I hope that they make some fixes to the system before the Witchwood launches the next rotation.

Thanks for reading!
ADWCTA

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