aznkid66's Arena Suggestions: Dynamic Income, Restricted HP, and Sideboard

[Pineapple]

Suggestion #1: Dynamic Income
The suggestion is that the rating amount of coins you win for your arena beating someone should scale with the remaining health, just as the score and amount of coins you win for winning a battle scales with your remaining HP.

To be specific:
Right now, the base values for people under Top 10 are 2, 3, 5, and 10.
Since no one really builds EM decks for the AI, you can assume that they'll get less income if those were the maximum values for non-EMs. Therefore, the amount should double to 4, 6, 10, and 20 for 100hp decks. That's 1 coin for every 25 final HP, 1 coin for every 16 final HP, 1 coin for every 10 final HP, and 1 coin for every 5 final HP...With the reward doubled upon EM. That gives the max for a rank 11+ platinum with no max-hp-increase cards to 80. I want rating to be determined like score is, so losing penalty should obviously be doubled (since we don't want farms) to 8, 12, 20, and 40.

I'm sure that this is possible, as the Arena is unsynchronized PvP. If it works for both players in PvP, why shouldn't it work for your Arena deck?
I haven't seen myself losing wins, which means that your Arena wins/losses are updated after the game, after the necessary information for this feature is known to the server. This makes the feature suggested feasible to program.

Now, are the rewards for the implementation of this feature worth the time it takes to implement it? Probably not. However, I think that it would make it better than the current "If you lose two (close or otherwise) games, you're out of the Arena forever."

Suggestion #2: Restricted HP
The suggestion is that Bronze must have 75-125 HP, Silver must have 100-150 HP, Gold 125-175 HP, Platinum 150-200.
In addition, with the difference between Silver and Gold being large (ability to win unupped/upped rare spins), I think that dexterity should be restricted to only Gold and Platinum decks.
This includes the suggestion to give everyone 4 extra skill points, so that Level 1 starts at 5 points. Each League deck starts with the minimum HP, and can spend a total of 10 points in HP to reach the max limit.

Currently, Arena is VERY DIFFICULT to farm, not because the decks are hard per se but because it's difficult to build decks catered to taking down both 100 HP opponents and 200 HP opponents. I think that differentiating the leagues, just like differentiating PvP1 and PvP2 or differentiating AI3 and AI5, would not make the games more boring for the players.

Suggestion #3: Sideboard
You should be able to take out up to 30 cards from your (60-card) deck after seeing the opponent's mark+card+stats, (the opponent's deck, or a random selection of half the cards in the deck).

[BluePriest]

I dont quite understand what you mean by the sideboard. Could you elaborate on it some more?

[Pineapple]

I dont quite understand what you mean by the sideboard. Could you elaborate on it some more?

Since you can take out up to 30 cards of your deck, you technically have a 30-card side-board.

[BluePriest]

I dont quite understand what you mean by the sideboard. Could you elaborate on it some more?

Since you can take out up to 30 cards of your deck, you technically have a 30-card side-board.

Let me see if I understnad.... you have the deck you go in with, but then, once you see your opponent, you can choose to remove some of those cards, add from the 30 card sideboard, or/and leave i the same? So potentially have more than 1 deck when facing the arena?

[Pineapple]

No, the suggestion I describe is that you can take out up to 30 cards from your current (maximum 60 cards) deck after seeing your opponent. No actual sideboard, and yes, it can give you the ability to have two completely different 30-card decks when facing the arena.
--
Would anyone like to clarify why dynamic income would be bad?

[BluePriest]

No, the suggestion I describe is that you can take out up to 30 cards from your current (maximum 60 cards) deck after seeing your opponent. No actual sideboard, and yes, it can give you the ability to have two completely different 30-card decks when facing the arena.
--
Would anyone like to clarify why dynamic income would be bad?

ahhh ok.  that makes sense.

Dynamic income would be bad because Arena wins shouldnt be a cash cow. Just a little perk. Perhaps if you included a range so people dont start thinking you want 100 electrum a win  would be good.

Meanwhile I voted no on the sideboard because your opponent cant change their deck, why should you be able to change yours?
I voted yes on all the restrictions because I think that until Gold, certain upgrades should be restricted to a certain amount. That way you dont fight an uber bronze player that feels like it should be gold.

[Barragor]

I think we shouldn't block the player's ability to be creative in building his/her arena deck so I voted bad on the restrictions
Imo dynamics is good and Sideboard is just a lame idea, no offense, but imagine a Sideboard vs fg's... would make it easy, and arena is only as good as fgs at lvl 80...

[Pineapple]

Well, health isn't really something that you need creativity to put points into, you know that you should try to keep your health as high as possible w/o sacrificng your deck idea to unupped cards or slow drawing.

I don't think sideboarding would make FGs that much easier. Look at I GotP Time, which is 50 cards...that gives you 10 cards you may be able to switch out, however, no variation of I GotP Time will help you beat the auto-quit gods.
Actually, it's much easier to build decks+sideboards to counter all/most of the FGs, since there aren't 500 FG decks, if I recall.
But let's stop beating around the bush, and imagine a sideboard vs. arena...with only a look at their mark, HP/upgrades/dex, and oracle card, how will you know which of the 60 cards you need to hard-counter it? If it's really that easy, maybe it's just too straightforward of a deck. (entropy pendulum, black hole, and gravity mark? Oh, discord/BH!) Even with revealing half the deck, decks made of 6 copies of each key card will be revealed, so sideboards give players a need to be more creative with their decks.

[BluePriest]

Well, health isn't really something that you need creativity to put points into, you know that you should try to keep your health as high as possible w/o sacrificng your deck idea to unupped cards or slow drawing.

I don't think sideboarding would make FGs that much easier. Look at I GotP Time, which is 50 cards...that gives you 10 cards you may be able to switch out, however, no variation of I GotP Time will help you beat the auto-quit gods.
Actually, it's much easier to build decks+sideboards to counter all/most of the FGs, since there aren't 500 FG decks, if I recall.
But let's stop beating around the bush, and imagine a sideboard vs. arena...with only a look at their mark, HP/upgrades/dex, and oracle card, how will you know which of the 60 cards you need to hard-counter it? If it's really that easy, maybe it's just too straightforward of a deck. (entropy pendulum, black hole, and gravity mark? Oh, discord/BH!) Even with revealing half the deck, decks made of 6 copies of each key card will be revealed, so sideboards give players a need to be more creative with their decks.

GotP is a bad example. 50 card decks get the least out of this. Meanwhile, a speedbow is 30 cards, and I could easily make 2 different 30 card decks that can cover the main weaknesses I have with my speedbow (GotP being the biggest problem I have, but antimatter decks as well causing a problem). Its yet another attempt at making arena easier, and not in a good way.

[Pineapple]

However, don't you think that it's possible that a sideboard would promote creativity in building Arena decks? The amount of information on the deck to be revealed can be debated, and knowing only the mark, oracle card, and stats wouldn't be very helpful for choosing a PC-heavy speedbow vs. a CC-heavy or creature heavy speedbow.

[BluePriest]

However, don't you think that it's possible that a sideboard would promote creativity in building Arena decks? The amount of information on the deck to be revealed can be debated, and knowing only the mark, oracle card, and stats wouldn't be very helpful for choosing a PC-heavy speedbow vs. a CC-heavy or creature heavy speedbow.

I dont see how it would promote creativity in creating arena decks.
Some ex of how it would be easier
 -PC/Fire Shield
 -PC (I hate you wings)
 -Sanctuary/PA
 -Purify
 -Forget Maxwell Demon, Pure Rush is probably the way to go. Perhaps a pa if I fear quicksand, and slight pc for that annoying diamond shield
 -Sanctuary
 -Sanctuary, Shields not as important
 -PC, mass CC
 -ehhh, maybe PC? Healing is the only huge advantage light has... maybe some mass CC in case of rol/hope
 -Cheap Creature/rewind/Sanctuary in case of GotP time
 -PC. I hate permafrost shield./

Those are the things I would look at. And thats just from the element, not even the oracle card. Sure you never know if they are going to go rainbow with a side of the element listed, but you have a better idea of how to organize your deck most of the time... in fact. I would almost say this would make people lean towards rainbows MORE because it would be harder to predict what to expect just from the element and known card.

[Pineapple]

Do you really think that would work in practice? If you face RoL/Hope with 6 deflagrations and no fire shield, then you're doomed. Since "Pure Rush" is one of the variations, I'm assuming that at least 30 of your cards would be a clean-cut pure rush deck. No quints? Air brings shockwaves or owl's eye, GG. Or maybe it's a flying weapon deck, GG. You posted counters to unoriginal, uncreative decks. To prevent getting hard-countered, people will try to break elemental norms.

Oh, and if we go further and play around with seeing half a deck, people will be more diverse in their cards (no more 6 copies of 2 creatures and PC, the rest pillars), and rainbows will be hard-countered by an anti-rainbow variation.