Arena was the first mini game we added to Gems of War back in 2015. We have mentioned several times in the past that we would like to go back and revisit the Arena to give it some love and attention. Now we have kept that promise.

• We have removed the old Difficulty from Arena.
• Difficulty will now be consistent throughout the run.
• This means that difficulty no longer affects Arena Rewards when finishing an Arena.
• We have replaced Heroes with Epic Troops.
• Hero improvements in the past and newer powerful weapons have meant that Arena has become less about drafting a team, and more about which hero can cast their spell first. We wanted to shift the focus of Arena back to players coming up with clever combinations in their draft picks.
• When drafting Troops, players will now be able to see their Arena team, so they can view the troops they have currently chosen. This allows them to plan out their other draft picks to optimize their team.
• We have made improvements to the Arena Troop Pool, so newer troops will automatically appear as Arena options 3-4 weeks or so after they are released (previously, we would just add new batches of troops every 3-6 months).
• We have reduced the max number of Victories from 8 to 6.
• This reduces the amount of battles required to play. Generally, without the hero, we found these battles take a little longer, so requiring 6 battles to complete felt consistent with the old 8.
• Number of Defeats remains unchanged
• With the changes to Victories, we have rebalanced Arena Rewards and made some improvements to the amount of Trophies given:
• 0 Wins: 50 Gold
• 1 Win: 100 Gold
• 2 Wins: 500 Gold, 75 Souls, 3 Trophies, 1 Glory Key
• 3 Wins: 1000 Gold, 200 Souls, 8 Trophies, 1 Glory Key
• 4 Wins: 2000 Gold, 350 Souls, 18 Trophies, 2 Glory Key
• 5 Wins: 3000 Gold, 500 Souls, 30 Trophies, 2 Glory Key
• 6 Wins: 4000 Gold, 750 Souls, 50 Trophies, 3 Glory Key
• We have made 2 changes to the Arena Offer. The first is that it will now trigger at 5 Wins instead of 6, and will only happen 3 times per day.
• The second change is that the Arena Offer will give a random Daily Deal.
• Players who earn 6 Wins in an Arena run will get a 10% discount to their Arena Offer.
• Offers do not include VIP exclusive offers.
• We have added a new perk for players who are VIP 4 or higher, that they will start Arena runs with 1 Victory.
• Campaign Tasks around Arena have been changed to reflect the Victory changes.

We have added a new event focused around the Arena.

• During the event players will earn Valor based on the number of Wins from the Arena run
• 0 Wins: 0 Valor
• 1 Win: 0 Valor
• 2 Wins: 5 Valor
• 3 Wins: 10 Valor
• 4 Wins: 18 Valor
• 5 Wins: 30 Valor
• 6 Wins: 50 Valor
• The Mini Games Menu will have an Arena tracker (similar to Vault Event) which will track the amount of Valor a player has earned towards the current reward Stage.
• The Arena Tracker has 5 different rewards that it will progress through before starting back at the first reward type again. Rewards that have been earned will be sent out via the In-Game Mail:
• Reward 1: 3 Gem Keys
• Reward 2: 1000 Jewel Shards
• Reward 3: 2 Event Keys
• Reward 4: 60 Writs
• Reward 5: 1 Orb of Chaos
• Arena of Valor also will support a pre-set Troop that will replace one of the regular troop draft picks.
• The Troop will be given each time a player starts an Arena run during the Event.
• The Troop is not limited by the normal rarities available in Arena (e.g. Common, Rare, Ultra-Rare, Epic).
• These pre-set Troops may not happen in every Arena Event.
• Any Arena runs started before the event begins will not give any Valor, and any Arena runs in progress at the end of the event can be completed like a normal Arena run once the event ends.
• Valor doesn’t carry over to the next event, and any reward progress is lost once the event ends.

• We have added a special new Flash Offer for special Event Pets.
• Special Event Pets are the cosmetic Pets for special Events such as Halloween, Gems of War Anniversary, Campaign Pets, etc.
• Faction Pets or Pets that can be gained from Pet Gnomes will not be offered.
• Platform Exclusive Pets like Steam Puppy or X-Ball will not be offered.
• New Special Event Pets will not be offered until 3 months after their first release.
• The offer will cost $1.99 USD and can be purchased up to 2 times
• The offer will contain the following:
• 2x Pet
• 50 Gems
• 6 Colored Pet Food
• Pets are chosen randomly but Players will not be offered a Pet if they have enough pets to ascend or are already at the maximum ascension.
• Like the Weapon Flash Offer, this flash offer will appear randomly during the week, as long as there isn’t another Flash Offer running.

• We have made some changes when viewing Troop cards in Battles so that it does not affect game speed if the battle is running in the background.
• We have made some visual improvements for Advent Calendars and Flash Offers
• Advent Calendars will all have the new improvements, but only a few existing Flash Offers will use the new visuals with the 5.2 Update.
• We will be updating other existing Flash Offers in future updates.
• We have added support for more reward help popups in Advent Calendars and Flash Offers and Advent Calendars.
• These rewards can now be tapped/ clicked or have controller shortcuts to get more information about that reward.
• We have added a new Halloween themed Logo for the season.

• We have fixed an issue where Class Masteries were not applying in Battles correctly.
• We have fixed an issue where Battle Icons on the World Event Fight Map would jitter when they were too close together.
• We have fixed an issue where Valravens could overwrite Battle Bosses in World Events.
• We have fixed an issue where players not in a guild would get an error if they tried to open a World Event news item.
• We have also fixed an assortment of smaller issues.