Shadow Arena News

You revel in the spotlight and you're your own hypeman in front of a camera.
Or maybe you're the cool, calm, collected type. Or maybe you don't even use a camera.
Regardless, people enjoy watching you fight and you know how to give them a show.

And you enjoy the two things you hear when you get a kill: the sound your opponent makes when they hit the ground and the faraway sounds of your viewers' keyboards as they frantically smash out pog emotes.

If this is you, we want you as a Shadow Arena Partnered Streamer!

Find out how to sign up below:


■ Sign-Up Period
- June 2, 2020 (Tue) - TBA

■ Requirements

* Should you fulfill the requirements (1 – 3), you’ll receive support as a partnered streamer.
(i.e. You must stream at least 1 hour twice a week and have at least 100 average concurrent viewers to fulfill the requirements for tier 1 partnership.)
* We will check whether requirements are fulfilled on the Monday of every week at 12:00 (UTC+9). There will also be a notice every Monday announcing the streamers selected to be partners.
* There is a separate event being planned for streamers who broadcast on other platforms besides Twitch.


■ How to Apply
① Fulfill the requirements listed above before every week Monday at 12:00 (UTC+9).
② Fill out the application linked below and attach a screenshot of your dashboard showing your channel’s address and record of average concurrent viewers.
▶ Fill Out Application


■ Partnered Streamer Perks

* Perks will only be provided by maintaining streamer requirements for 4 weeks after being selected as a partnered streamer.
* If you’re selected as a Tier 1 partnered streamer, you can immediately be changed to a Tier 2 partnered streamer upon fulfilling the Tier 2 requirements. In such a case, you will be notified of the change through the partnered streamer announcement.
*In order to receive the featured on the Shadow Arena launcher and video advertisement support perks, streamers must create a video and provide it to us. This video also must meet our internal criteria as well.
* For the event hosting and goods/merch support, streamers must provide an idea or plan regarding an event. This event plan must also meet our internal criteria as well. However, event proposals are subject to change based on further discussion.

■ Special Support Perks
① There will be special support perks for tier 1 and 2 partnered streamers or any streamers (even if they are not partnered) who have contributed greatly to the promotion of Shadow Arena.
② Streamers eligible for the special support perks will be selected by a separate internal criteria and process.


Notices
- If the information provided in the application does not match your actual information or insufficient information is provided, you may not be eligible to be selected or receive any rewards. Please make sure to enter your information accurately.

- Pearl Abyss reserves the right to change/cancel sign-period and other details depending on mitigating circumstances. If changes are made, they can be found on this page.

- If your stream or game nickname includes inappropriate content, you may not be eligible to be selected.

- If you violate the Shadow Arena Terms of Service or do not have insufficient activity (not fulfilling partnered streamer requirements), you may be disqualified even after being selected and have any rewards withdrawn.

- If you have any other questions or concerns related to the event, please contact us via [Support].

- Any matters not listed on this page will follow the [Shadow Arena Event Rules] and [Shadow Arena - Terms of Service].

Greetings, this is Shadow Arena.

Here are the details regarding the latest hotfix update to Shadow Arena on June 2 (Tue).

If you are currently accessing the game, please restart your game to receive the latest update.

Please take note of the details below to avoid any inconvenience to your gameplay.


[h2]Fixes and Improvements[/h2]
● Fixed an issue where the game unexpectedly shuts down when spectating a player's PoV in Spectator Mode.
● Fixed an issue where the afterimage of AI Bots does not disappear.


Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Greetings, this is Shadow Arena.

We’d like to inform you of the measures we’ve taken against violators of the Shadow Arena Terms of Service.

We ask everyone for your cooperation in respecting and observing the Shadow Arena Terms of Service by refraining from any acts that could be deemed as a violation.

☞ Shadow Arena Terms of Service

Please refer below for more details.


■ Notice of Restricted Violators

Production, Distribution, or Usage of Unauthorized Program/Macro - 1st Violation

- Restriction Date: June 2, 2020 (Tue)

- Restriction Details: Permanent Ban

- Number of Restricted Violators: 16



Thank you


■ List of Shadow Arena PC Restricted Accounts (Cumulative)

- Details: Permanent PC restriction for Shadow Arena services







■ List of Restricted Violators (Cumulative)
Production, Distribution, or Usage of Unauthorized Program/Macro - 1st Violation
- Restriction: Permanent Restriction of Shadow Arena Service

Greetings, this is Shadow Arena.

Here are the updates made to Shadow Arena during the temporary maintenance on June 2 (Tue).

* Patch Size: 65.52 MB (Approx.)

Check out all the details below, and we will see you in the arena!

[h3]■ System [/h3]
- Added a system to include AI players in lower ranking tier Solo matches.
> The lower the ranking tier, the more AI players that will appear.

Dev Memo:

We’ve added AI players to lower-tier Solo matches. While we’ve gone into more depth about our intentions behind this system in the Dev Note, let us touch upon it briefly here as well. This system is meant to help beginners to slowly adapt to the game, and also adjust the number of players in a match to ensure more optimal matchmaking according to skill level. As you go up in ranking, less and less AI players will appear until you reach the top where AI players will not appear at all.

[h3]■ Heroes [/h3]



- Shield of Heidel (RMB): Changed the 1 sec. buff that was applied immediately upon use.
> Before: DP +100
> After: Super Armor (Overlaps with Defensive Stance)
※ With the change in this effect, you can now withstand disarm defensive stance skills for 1 sec. upon casting Shield of Heidel.

Dev Memo:

One of Jordine’s characteristics is his solid defense from using his shield, but with the addition of skills that disarm defensive stance, that appeal has somewhat dulled. We’ve changed Jordine so that if you match the timing, you can now withstand an enemies’ blow even if you get hit by a skill that disarms defensive stance.




- Explosive Trap (4): Fixed to cause a chain explosion with other Explosive Traps when set within 1m.

Dev Memo:
There’s been a lot of feedback saying that the playstyle of stacking Orwen’s Explosive Trap to take down someone in one explosion was a little excessive, so instead of just making it not possible to overlap Explosive Traps, we fixed Explosive Traps to explode in a chain reaction if set within 1m of each other to keep the possibility of making a chain explosion at a desired moment.

[h3]■ Fixes and Improvements [/h3]
- Changed the names of AI Bots to the English name of that Hero.

Thank you.

Hello! 

This is the Lead Producer of Shadow Arena, “Byulbram”, Kwangsam Kim.

It’s already been 2 weeks since the start of Early Access, and in those past 2 weeks, here are the 3 major things we’ve been focusing on. 

[h2]Lag

Hacks

Balance[/h2]

We’ve received a lot of feedback from everyone, and from that feedback, those 3 are what we believe are the most important issues. 

Of these, balance presents a somewhat obvious solution. 

That is to listen to feedback quickly and frequently and do our best to implement fixes through updates. 

During these past 2 weeks, that’s what we’ve tried to do, and we believe we’ll “continue” to try do so. 

Unfortunately, the remaining two are a bit more troublesome. 

First off, let me touch upon lag. Bringing together many players who are physically spread out to enjoy a game at the same time is a massive technological challenge. In order to make gameplay as optimal as possible, we are constantly fixing our internal servers and network structure with the premise above in mind. As a result, we feel that we’ve made some improvements with the update on May 28th.   

However, there are still lag related issues remaining. We're sure everyone has a lot to share about this, so don’t hold back and let us know.  

For example, when landing CC skills or juggling skills to knock down an opponent, they show up as being knocked down on the opponent's screen but are shown untouched on the attackers or a third-parties' screen. (Technically, this kind of issue isn’t server lag, but a situation where movement/action output is out of step. We’ve included it here since it looks similar to lag.) Or when a fall/similar action is ignored. Additionally, there’s an issue where lag seems to increase once a couple of days have passed since server maintenance.   

We are currently focusing on investigating the cause behind these sort of issues and fixing them. Unfortunately, this isn’t something we can respond to as quickly as balance issues, as this requires constant examination, investigation, and review of the entire game code. Nevertheless, this issue is our highest priority for issues that need to be fixed. We are still working on it as this is being written, but we hope to give you good news soon. 

Moving on to hacks. Only a few days into the start of Early Access, we started receiving reports of in-game speed hacks. Our response was to start collecting and verifying data about these hacks, and once enough data was verified, we immediately activated an automatic disconnect function. After the May 28th update, we also started to automatically block the connection of speedhack users and enforced hardware bans whenever a speedhack user was repeatedly detected. 

Still, this isn’t enough to us to relax. Due to the nature of PvP games, we know that there’ll constantly be users who try to use hacks; thus, we will continue to actively monitor and respond to any such attempts. If you ever encounter a hack, please report it to us immediately. We will investigate it and take action as quickly and carefully as possible. 

Besides the three mentioned above, there are other critical problems as well. 

One problem is that the skill gap is already too wide for beginners to pick up the game and try to learn it. 

Before we go into depth about this problem, let us explain the structure of our matchmaking system. Our system organizes players into matchmaking groups based on the number of players currently online. In other words, the more players that are playing, the more likely they are to be matched with players of similar skill levels. 

The best way to fundamentally improve matchmaking is to increase the number of players playing the game. (Of course, we’d appreciate it if you share the game with your friends) 

But in reality, we need a way to improve the game experience right now. We also need to solve the difficulties beginners face when trying to learn the game for the first time. 

While AI Match certainly exists for players new to the game, these players can’t help but be frustrated when matching up with experienced players when first playing Solo matches. 

Of the 40 players who enter a match, the most skilled players will most likely dominate the game, leaving the rest of players to experience a gap in skill level. 

We’ve continued to look into how to solve this problem, and we may have found a somewhat radical solution.  

That solution is to include AI players into Solo games.  

For new players, games with lower tier players with low ranking scores will have AI players mixed in, and as their skill level goes up, the AI will gradually decrease until they reach completely AI-free games for middle/upper-level players. (The AI difficulty will be different according to the player’s ranking.)

Hence, the goal is to create a more smooth and phased experience instead of players immediately skipping from fully AI matches to matches with only players.

This can also aid in finding games in poor match times, such as early in the morning, by including AI to start a game.  

Right now, we feel this radical idea is finally ready. 

Immediately after today’s update, you’ll be able experience the new matchmaking system. We are aware of how much of major change this update is, so we will keep a close eye on the feedback after today’s update. 

And of course, we’ve received a lot of feedback and reports about problems that need to be fixed. While we are working on the top priorities mentioned above, we will not ignore the other problems and do our best to fix them quickly. 

So, it seems we’ll be updating quite frequently for the time being.  

Regarding the additional feedback we’ve received from many players, we’ll be returning to you again soon with our answers, so please hang on a little longer.

Thank for you enjoying Shadow Arena, we’ll do our best not to disappoint you.