Posted by Retroman 10 months ago (Source)

Hello Albion Community,

Let me introduce you to one of our cool new features in detail: The Crystal Arena

The Crystal Arena is intended as a way to introduce as many players as possible to the exciting gameplay of competitive 5v5 Crystal League. It is a full ranked Arena game mode directly available from the in-game menu, like with the current arena. You can queue up solo or with a party and you will automatically end in a 5v5 scenario with Skill Based Matchmaking. You will also Rank Up and Rank Down depending on your performance in the matches. And the match rewards also scale up depending on your Rank.




Crystal Arena Match

• Uses Crystal League match rules and map, but is non-lethal
  
• Players can sign up with a party of 1, 2, 3, or 5 and will be merged into teams of five when the match starts
  
• Skill Based matchmaking
  
• Players who don’t play their role may be temporarily banned from the Arena
  
• Soft IP Cap: 900
  
• Scaling Factor above Softcap: 20%
  
• All 5v5 Crystal League Changes Apply
  
  • Double Healer Penalty if one team uses two Healing Staffs
    
  • Adjusted Crystal Realm map
    

Rank Points and Ranks

• All players start at "Iron 1" rank with zero Rank Points (RP)
  
• Players gain RP with every won match and lose RP with every lost match
  
  • The RP change depends on the weighted average skill level of your team against the enemy team.
    
  • In short: beating a stronger team gives much more RP, than beating a weaker team. And the reverse is true for losing, losing against a weaker team will cost more RP.
    
  • The RP Change pace also depends on your current Rank. In Iron I Wins grant more RP than loses reduce RP. The higher the rank the harsher the loss penalty. Additionally RP wins are higher if the player is considered more skillful than the average above the average
    
• Reaching a certain Rank Points threshold will promote / demote the player to a new Rank (i.e. Iron I → Iron II, etc)
  
• Player Rank Points and Ranks are visible in all player stats
  
• Rankings and RP reset at beginning of each season
  
• Arena Seasons begin with each Guild Season, and continue through the offseason
  
• The Rankings screen displays a Crystal Arena RP leaderboard with all players per season.
  

Match Rewards

• A daily limited reward for the first 3 wins a day:
  
  • New “Sealed Royal Sigil" – can be opened to receive a Royal Sigil of a random tier (this is independent of the rank)
    
• Unlimited Rewards for every Win:
  
  • Silver, Fame and occasional vanity items (scales with Rank)
    
  • Healers get an additional
    
• Unlimited smaller consolation prizes every Loss
  
• A Draw will also pay out the lose reward
  
• All unlimited Rewards are increased by 50% with Premium
  

Rewards per Rank:

All Win Values listed are Base Values and increase by 50% with Premium
Vanity Items chance is weighted, dending on the Arena Sigils cost

• Players also earn rewards for ranking up
  
• Rewards for reaching each rank can only be earned once per season
  

Rank Thresholds and Rank Up Reward:




Arena Vanity Items

• Added new Arena Gladiator Wardrobe pieces (Helmet, Chest, Shoes and Cape)
  
• Crystal Arena & Arena Wins don't give directly Arena Sigils anymore
  
• Instead there is now a chance to get directly a random vanity item on a Win and Rank Ups
  
• All Arena Vanity Items are now non-tradeable (except for the furniture items)
  
• Arena Vanity Items can be salvaged into new untradeable Arena Sigils (these can also be won directly on Rank Ups)
  
• New "Arena Sigils " can be used to purchase new Arena Gladiator Wardrobe pieces and all the already existing Arena Vanity Items
  
  • The new Arena Sigils, as well as any vanity bought with them, are untradeable
    
• Old Arena Sigils are designated "legacy", and can be used to purchase old skins for a limited time
  
  • Legacy Sigils already in the game, as well as vanity bought with them, remain tradeable (but the Arena Gladiator Wardrobe can only be purchased with the new Arena Sigils)
    

Changes to the original Arena

• The Rewards are now also split into: 3 Daily Rewards, Unlimited Win Rewards and Loss Consolidation Prizes
  
• Queue now allows teams of 1-5 to sign up and automatically creates 5-person teams
  
• Soft IP Cap: 700
  
• Scaling Factor above Softcap: 20% → 5%
  

I hope we can see many more players enjoy the exciting Crystal League gameplay and we see new teams form. But since going from Crystal Arena directly into the full loot Crystal League would still be a very rough jump, we also added an entire new Non-Lethal Crystal League as a stepping stone in the middle. See in the Season 16 announcement: Changes for Guild Season 16

I wish you all a lot of fun with this update and the Crystal Arena .

Cheers,
Retro

Posted by Retroman 10 months ago (Source)

Full pre-made teams can only be matched against other full pre-made teams for the first 10 minutes in the waiting queue. Only if no opponent can be found after 10 minutes will non-full premade opponents be considered. We might adjust this value depending on how the average waiting queue will be after the Crystal Arena goes live.

Cheers,
Retro