I have been chatting with various people with mixed views/experiences on 1.8 Arena battles.
Some find it well balanced and working well and others are experiencing absolute chaos?
I fall into the first camp after 1.7 being an absolute disaster. What is your experience?
No. The arena hasn’t really changed. There are just less counters to 135+ speed Thoras because dodges no longer save you.
Boosts are still cancer.
I hate the new arena
I think it’s a bit better than 1.7 but the massively speed boosted dinos are still a major issue to deal with
It’s too soon to tell.
My observations on one day of play; I made one change.
Dropped a L28 5/5/4 Indoraptor (I had planned on dropping it last patch so I gave it minimal boosts just to remain viable while working on Dio. Scrapped that plan for Monostego but it still worked out)
Added L25 Monostego 4/4/2
The results were unexpected.
I’m used to battling the same 50 some odd people with very similar team make ups. Now I’m battling different people with dinos averaging 24-28 which is a welcome change.
The dinos are different and I suspect people are trying out new things to see what works and what doesn’t. Thor are Dracocera are still viable but Thor seems easier to counter.
Dracocera is a tad more difficult than I expected because I didn’t take into account shielding dinos need to know it’s coming. Tryko is a hard counter and the only one that really punched me in the face so far. Magna is still awesome so far.
For a first day I haven’t had this much fun since beta.
It seems the arena has greatly improved for me. I went on my first big winning streak since back when 1.7 was implemented. The cloak and dodge nerfs were very much welcome.
I reduced RND dino’s some months ago just for personal sanity issues. Finding the battles much less annoying with the changes. The six dodge Indo sweeping teams and making me feel I’m a viewer not a player is gone.
Not at all, I was at 5000 facing 26-22 level creatures, ONCE in a while some 28. but now I face level 30s through 28s all the time… pretty annoying. Soon dropping back to Lockwood.
Matchmaking has been working well in my favor but seems to screw the other person over. I’ve been fighting dinosaurs in the low 20’s while my average level is 28ish. I’ve gone up a few hundred trophies in just a night.
I’m still experiencing arena bugs though 
I’m currently stuck in the mess that is the 5k-5200 range, I’ll let you know once the whales have leveled past me lmao (ow my butt)
It didn’t for me. I face players with dinos few level higher (29-30) and super boosted. What is going to take down Thor, Tryko or Draco with 140+ speed, 8000+ HP and 2800+ Attack? This game is a joke now.
I’ve gone up 200 trophies so far and I have been seeing some new opponents. The new trophy system is much better. I’m still using my level 29 indo boosted to 5/5/4. It still packs a punch if I can get in 2 hits.
No, this has ruined the game for me. The crit nerf, the cloak/ evasive nerf is just making this game really bad.
DC is out of control, boosting its attack after taking the DSR was an awful move. I’m up for the DC and swap in moves, but it’s not great when it can be cycled continuously. The best nerf would be to take away the regenerate.
I am not long for this game anymore, definitely not spending money on it until it’s back enjoyable and competitive.
It basically amounts to a big buff for super Thor. So battles will be even more boring. Eli and indo are completely crippled against Thor. So I hate it. It rewards the super boosted Thor even more. Thanks Ludia for nerfing basically EVERY counter to it.
Massive improvement for me jumping from 4600 to 5200. Mostly even battles with either player being able to win although rarely a one sided battle
So my average level is a bit below yours and I’m battling level 30 teams and have lost over 200 trophies just this morning.
I normally PvP in two extended sessions at the same time every day.
Before the 1.8 upgrade I was winning about 60% of the time in Sorna Marshes and over the prior week or two had slowly leveled up from 3200 to 3450. I broke into Jurassic Ruins on Monday, but lost two in a row to bump me back down to Marshes. The teams I played against during this timeframe were roughly the same level and composition as what I have on my team. I considered the matches to be fair.
This morning, instead of being faced with players my own level (16,18,18,18,19,20,20,21), I was facing teams that (on average) were boosted 22 through 24 dinos. One team had a boosted level 24 Thor unique. I only saw one level 21 in all that time and nothing smaller, although it was heavily boosted.
Over an hour and 15 minutes, I wound up playing 12 matches and lost eight of them. The teams I beat also had overpowered dinosaurs compared to my team, but they played very poorly (swapping when they didn’t need to, using normal strikes instead of larger damage or priority abilities, etc). I’m guessing that if there are AI players that quietly get added to the mix that these “bad players” could have been AI.
So, yes… I’m seeing a big impact and have already dropped 200 points in just one day.
Now, here’s my surprising reaction to this. I don’t mind.
It may be that I had artificially worked my way into an arena that I should not have been in or had accrued trophy points by playing lower level players. I have no way to know that, as I play who I am offered, and found those matches fair
.
If Ludia has reworked matchmaking, I expect I will eventually settle into a new arena and trophy score which matches my dinosaurs and abilities. I also expect all these higher level teams will rise above me and I’ll no longer have to fight them. The real test of whether the matchmaking system has been fixed will come after things settle out.
If I find myself competing against similar teams after a couple of days have gone by, then I’ll be perfectly happy to keep on fighting on. However, if I continue to be matched against teams that out-level me by 4 to 6 levels for the next several weeks as I sink down to arena 2 then I’d be prepared to state that matchmaking is not working as it ought to be.
I’ll give it time and see how it all falls out.
What new trophy system. Everyone shows 0.
Oh no! You’re on the other end of the spectrum it seems.
I’ve had a few matches where I was up against 30’s and a few where our levels were about even but 80% of my matches have been low level dinosaurs… So far anyways
It shows everyone’s score as zero, but I can see my own trophy count to the right of it.