I personally ever since joined my first match I loved it
So much fun, as long as players are actually not sitting in base AFK or arena doesnt start in 10 vs 8.. which has occured a few times for whatever reason.
Lately i completely stopped even trying to get in the arena for 2 reasons...
1. Temporary because of the Titan event that was taking ages to do the quests, rift and the boss itself.
2. However the 2nd reason is the most important... The new changes in the Maelstrom arena where you are actually Forced to take care of your other ships for the most part of the arena. So we had a case in a match where the losing team 1minute before the time runs out... knowing the mechanics that are currently in the arena, they just ran away from our main ship... they head to our base and destroyed a lonely ship that hasnt even been touch by any of us to get the 50 points they needed to win the arena at the very last seconds....
Well I do understand that the previous mechanics were also frustrating, BUT... I will probably never try to waste 20mins of my life again to join an arena thats suppose to be fun and get 2-3 players afk or not starting at all, or get cheesed like this at the very last moment... Because i personally think We need to have an option as a team to choose whether we go with 2 ships - 5 man crew each OR 1 ship with 10 man crew. I don't want to be forced to do the one or the other. I want to have an option as a team which one suits my team better. We currently DO NOT have that option, because we always have to send at least 1 member to take care of the 2nd ship in base just to make sure wont be destroyed staying stationary in the base without a crew BUT at the same time to grant enemies the same points as you would destroy a ship while having 10 man crew on it and able to outplay them in a naval battle.
So I have 3 suggestion that needs to be made in my opinion in order for people to have interest to join the arena just for the fun itself and some rewards ofc..
1. Redo the changes with the invincibilty of ships in base to not be timed for 2minutes after spawn. Much better would be IF first you boarded the ship and shot a cannon, or grab its Wheel ( losing invincibility right away in any of those 2 cases). And on the second case to lose the invincibility to be IF Your main ship gets destroyed ( e.g. if the ship thats sitting in base is the only one you have left to operate with)
2. The second suggestion I do have is to force people to seek for naval battle and not just run away and waste people's time like a little you know what. Make a minimum ~150 points to be scored to be able to score a Victory, otherwise match ends with a Draw - granting both teams same rewards( something appropriate to suits all players 20min time investment - whether honor or half a coin
)
3. The last suggestion I do have and not on the last spot - To give us real-time information about how many people are activily Queue'd up for the Maelstrom arena. Something like a counter where you can see it on your Arena Tab - Maelstrom arena. With a feature like this anyone could check at any time during the day whether they are just 5 ppl queued up or 15... Most people would love to know if they hopes to get a game a real or just a dream.
May be 1 more last thing: Make sure games doesnt start 8 vs 10.
I happen to have a couple of games where 1 of the teams had 2 members less than the other team. For some reason I don't even understand why werent those game ended in a 9vs9 scenario
So since now Its the time. I wish all of you Happy Holidays and make Archeage great again -> ArcheRage i mean