Saying Goodbye to The Arena

Why is this in feedback and suggestions and not developer updates? This forum can be hard to navigate as it is, everything is everywhere.

Not happy about the cut off being the day they announced it, I mean it doesn’t affect me negatively but I have friends who I was helping up to 50 and they get the shaft on cosmetics. Why could the deadline not just be the day it closes in Feb? I can see they don’t want people rushing to arena to wrap up before closing but it still comes off a little abrupt and thumbs the nose to those newer players.

@gromerus said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

#savearene Why did you take our competetive heart of this game

The whole point of the post is explaining this and yet people ask.

Actually I have less free time i love sea of thieves but I don't have more time I like arena small games so I will be satisfied but hearing it going to close now what I do

I definitely LOVE the adventure mode (witch includes PvP, I don't know why some people talk about Adventures like is ONLY PvE) and I'm almost a Triumphant Sea Dog.

I'll be honest, I'll miss this.

Arena was painful, but also helpful, it helped me to get better, to stay calm in a bad situation, to improve my cannon aim and prevent boarders.

As a lover of Adventure Mode, I want to say "Thanks" to all the Arena people who helped me to LEARN and PRACTISE.
Thanks guys, you're awesome.

We will always remember what does mean "Be forged by Arena", the GOOD part of that.

We shared something that is about to become unique, and I'm honored.

Meanwhile:
For all the arena player who just spawncamping and repair your ship for all the game, calling u "Noob" For 15 minutes.. Well.. For this people, I'm happy.
U can finally change game now.
Enjoy call of duty, or Brawl Stars maybe.

Guys I fell like you're slowly removing the "thieves" part from the game's name.

@grumpyw01f Except I’m not asking for it to be easier. I’m asking for them to be put behind new commendations that still require significant effort. We absolutely should be entitled to at least work towards them considering the removal of arena was announced with no prior warning and the fact that since arena is being removed because the player base barely touched it, a month long window isn’t enough. Also, there is most definitely ego stroking, just see the community backlash when Rare tried to lower the amount of wins from 240 to 100. People complained so bad they had to add a new blunderbuss just to appease them. It’s clear we disagree and that’s fine.

Is there any chance you guys will add the Glorious and Triumphant Sea Dog fishing rods still? Those are the only 2 items still missing in both sets, i’m geussing no but i want to ask before it’s too late.

This game has the most fun PvP I've experienced in a videogame, when works as intended.
I feel Rare is marginalising the PvP experience and the PvP community for a long time, even before they announced the lack of Arena support since there's already no developments done on the mode for a long time. Also there's no PvP related features let alone its balancing in Adventure for a long time.
PvP is totally ignored for a long time and it's the elephant in the room. Rare has a one way communication style with us and seems out of touch with what the loyal player-base wants: less bugs, bugs fixed faster, PvP balancing, repayable PvP content and then, only after, PvE, lore and narrative.

I have both played & won more arena rounds than some of my friends standing at level 46 right now while they've already bought their way to level 50.

Can someone from Dev. team explain what exactly is this reward for? I have spent last 7 days grinding Arenas to finish up the Triumphant. Day before announcement I played Arenas for 10 hours straight and now they are telling me that I am not eligible for the rewards while someone who visite Larinna is..

Its feels bit sad that Devs absolutely dehonest the time their players dedicate to the game.

Honestly I don't understand them getting rid of Arena.

I am (and so are many others) OKAY with them not providing any additional updates to it. It was fine and playable as is. Just because they can't updated it anymore, doesn't mean they need to remove it all together. Why not just leave it as is for those who love it? OR for people like me, who don't necessarily LOVE it, but who get to play it once a month or 2 with my 3 sons. Now we won't be able to do that anymore, and I am saddened by this.

I would bet a years salary, that if you guys gave the community the option with a POLL, REMOVE ARENA ENTIRELY, or LEAVE ARENA (but there will be no further updates, ever), 99.999% of people would vote that the team LEAVES it.

@ghostpaw
For many of us, it was practice mode, for those of us who wanted practice at PVP because when we sail, we always loose every fight. And before you say you could practice just by playing, this is true, but what is the point of sailing for 2 hours to find another ship, when you could log into arena, and find one right away to fight ?

@funkysvk

I must add one more comment - currently I am standing somewhere around 96% total achievements/commendations (even more, considering the fact that remaining closed ones are 90%+ completed as well)..

Its all about the priorities. If they would give us a headsup, I would jump in arenas way more, lot of players would do the same (as it was visible in yesterday's lobbies). Devs may even be surprised how many players really want to play it.

BTW - what a surprise that only 2% play-time is in arenas when you stopped developing it while adding tons of new stuff to the advanture.

I really believe that not giving players headsup is unfair as it can be. I trully hope they change their decision and change the The Good Boy deadline.

@musicmee said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

@funkysvk Ahoy matey!

The 2% player base was widely reported around a year ago... And it hasn't moved at all since. Players back then had the opportunity to show how loved Arena was... and they didn't, they voted with their feet and moved to Adventure or onto different games, sadly.

The only thing that really makes them money, is cosmetics in this game. They already make those, so what is wrong with setting 2% of them aside for those who play Arena, and releasing those as Arena only awards? Heck, this may even up the player base, but it is the only updates I would ask for.

@musicmee

Please, dont get me wrong, I am not against the decision to cancel arenas.
I am sad about that, true. But its fair, as they informed us ahead.

However, I am not okay with getting 0 minutes to finish up my level 50 to get The Good Boy.
Why they can't give us 14 days or so, so we can finish what we started.

In my opinion (you/many may disagree) the Good Boy is only skin worth it from those on the list.
Hope you understand my/players pain. Especially those who were so close to get it.

Arena had potential if done right, its a shame you didn't know how or take any advice from your player base/community on how to improve it

As someone who has played arena a whole lot both through the start until the end and had so many good memories its a shame to see it go

I do believe that by doing this you are making a terrible decision.

I now have 41 days to get 175 wins, or five wins a day until march 4th. "Gentlemen, let the rat race commence."

LETTER TO RARE:

I started in the Arena. That is where I met all my friends that I sail with today. I loved the few minutes of downtime to shop and check my stats. I loved ticking the boxes of accomplishments. It was a fun place to have an intense battle, learn to shoot and board. The race to the chest. It was a place to observe other players and meet true lords of the sea. It was a place that didn't require hours of commitment to get some gold and commendations. It was awesome. That said:

Rare, you did a dirty thing to your players. You stopped working on it, so it fell into disrepair. We stopped playing because it became literally unplayable, matchmaking was off-line or wonky, we got kicked out regularly. So now you blaming the players for its demise is disgraceful saying we didn't play. Add to that, it required less play time in the first place, so comparing it to Adventure mode that takes hours is dumb and insults our intelligence. You also added insult to injury by cutting it off without notice, especially those of us SO close to finishing. A head's up 6 months ago would have been the right thing to do. AND announcing this during the upswing and new season excitement? What were you thinking?

Let me offer a warning. Have you heard of a company called Zinga? They had one of the most profitable and popular games on Facebook. They had unprecedented growth, built new headquarters, hired new folks... Then some dingalings decided to add features, change the UI, essentially making it into a new game with new mechanics, and wizzbangers. The result? They lost everything. Their loyal players, their revenue and their arrogance because they did not listen to their players. We are not numbers on a spreadsheet. You don't get to say we had input when the "hard decision" you had to make did not include the folks who actually play the game.

Im close to getting triumphant sea dog and logged at least 1.7k hours into SoT, what is the Midnight prowler? From googling all I see is what appears to be a bugged arena ship? I cannot find any actual photos of the ship set itself.

@musicmee is it known if the 5 ships coming will have the vibrant colors the arena ships had early on or the newer more dull colors? Either way is fine but I’m just curious honestly.

@steggy03 said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

@grumpyw01f Except I’m not asking for it to be easier. I’m asking for them to be put behind new commendations that still require significant effort. We absolutely should be entitled to at least work towards them considering the removal of arena was announced with no prior warning and the fact that since arena is being removed because the player base barely touched it, a month long window isn’t enough. Also, there is most definitely ego stroking, just see the community backlash when Rare tried to lower the amount of wins from 240 to 100. People complained so bad they had to add a new blunderbuss just to appease them. It’s clear we disagree and that’s fine.

Any Arena commendation put into Adventure will be easier. Make it 1000, 2000 kills on a weapon for a reward, it doesn't matter. It's so much easier to cheese something like that, and it wouldn't be right to incentivize killing as many people as possible. That would increase spawncamping and fighting new players for the sake of it. In Arena, you signed up for the fight.

The situation with the blunderbuss isn't what you described - They were going to switch it to 100 and give the blunderbuss to those that got 240 already. When people complained, they reversed it and added the blunderbuss anyway. If those people had got it in a few months, in the years of Arena to come, there would be plenty of time to get the 240.

@enlistedcarcas said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

@grumpyw01f
No, it's gate keeping based on a completely arbitrary factor that Rare has 100% control over.

Announcing the closure and allowing a bit of time before the cutoff period is the appropriate and fair thing to do. Not having a cutoff period before an announcement... all that does is totally screw over a LOT of people.

Rare loses exactly zero things by giving people a little time to get the ship cosmetics AND people still get rewarded for participating. What a concept.

Instead, they screw people over and apologists try to defend them. Excuse us for having lives, not prioritizing this over everything else because Arena was a supposedly permanent part of the game we had no time limit on. There was no expectation of expediency as no announcement was yet made, so people thought they could get to 50 on their own time. All this does is demonstrate Rare doesn't value us or our time. Why would I reward that by ever buying something? Or investing any more time into this? Or ever recommending this game to anyone else?

All they had to do was something as simple as tell us ahead of time and give a window. The literal least amount of effort needed.

With the Good Boy gift, Rare is valuing the time you decided to spend in Arena already, not the time you would spend knowing you would get something out of it. Again, it's not about playing for a reward, it's about getting a reward for playing out of your own volition. In two years, it doesn't matter what time constraints you have, if you actually liked Arena to X extent you would have earned the Good Boy. You didn't get to X, so you don't get the Good Boy. It's simple. A reward for dedicated players. Not a grind-to-get item for FOMO players.

@satanicnemesis

Why is this in feedback and suggestions and not developer updates? This forum can be hard to navigate as it is, everything is everywhere.

When people come in to post about why Arena shouldn't be removed, the goal is for them to see this thread first. There weren't more than 10 posts that had to be locked yesterday (that I saw), so it seems to have worked.

@triheadedmonkey I love you lol, thank you for clearing that up for me!

@admiralcorporal said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

Honestly I don't understand them getting rid of Arena.

I am (and so are many others) OKAY with them not providing any additional updates to it. It was fine and playable as is. Just because they can't updated it anymore, doesn't mean they need to remove it all together. Why not just leave it as is for those who love it? OR for people like me, who don't necessarily LOVE it, but who get to play it once a month or 2 with my 3 sons. Now we won't be able to do that anymore, and I am saddened by this.

I would bet a years salary, that if you guys gave the community the option with a POLL, REMOVE ARENA ENTIRELY, or LEAVE ARENA (but there will be no further updates, ever), 99.999% of people would vote that the team LEAVES it.

The problem is that just leaving Arena still means that they have to work on it to keep it functional with every update. That's why it's going. If it took no work, they wouldn't remove it. The only thing they could really do at this point is make Arena a separate game entirely so that it won't have to be worked on for every update.

@thehamburgler95 said in Saying Goodbye to The Arena:

What does this mean for the legendary weapon skins and challenges to get them?Will they be lost or moved to a new challenge?

The current LSD weapons will go away, and be replaced with new ones, so that the set stays complete for new Pirate Legends.

I really hope you guys will find a way with Arena-related achievements. Unobtainable achievements in games really stress out a lot of people. Please don’t forget about your achievement hunter community, dear developers!
I guess if I knew it will be shut down I’d probably start with my Arena achievements first.. but now, ranking top three 100 times, playing 200 arena matches and getting to lvl 50 at Sea Dogs Alliance until March 10th doesn’t seem possible to me at all, unless I play SoT 24/7.. 5-6 Arena matches per day with 50% win ratio.. damn… I’m waiting for the decision regarding this.. Please let us know ASAP.