Marvel Strike Force: Breeze Through Real-Time Arena

Welcome back to MSF Mondays!

Each week we break down one more aspect of the hottest mobile game, Mobile Strike Force!

We are now gearing up for season 3 of the Real time Arena (RTA) event. MSF players generally like to complain—his past weeks blog post helped remind us of that, but now is not the time for that post—regarding RTA it was almost UNIVERSAL that this game mode is the new scourge of Marvel Mobile Strike Force. Season one was a weird run for everyone involved and while changes have been made, the campaign just doesn’t seem to be getting more enjoyable.

RTA is a new twist on the existing Live-PvP mode that MSF has been pushing for months now, which at first mention sounds fun. Hey, I get to challenging myself against the best players in the world! Sweet, I’m here for it.

However, the devs haven’t quite figured out how to make this mode different enough than Arena. The creators tried a lot of variations to eliminate meta teams and players being used all the time. Real-Time Arena has taken the “quick match” version of PvP and added an element of rewards based on racking up knockouts (eliminating enemy toons) as well as completing daily and weekly objectives.

Real-Time Arena Complaints

Most of the complaints against this new mode is centered around the matchmaking. This was not new to the PvP mode as matchmaking was always a bit lopsided. Here, however, the matchmaking seems far worse. Matchmaking is based off total collection power (TCP) but someone in your TCP range could have a top-flight Black Order team and you may be using a modest team of toons that more align to your personal objectives.

The daily and weekly objectives range from “Use Black Widow’s abilities (10 times)” to “Use Wakandans’ abilities (30 times), and even “Use Controller abilities (600 times)”. Some of these can prove to be nearly impossible for some players as they may not have the character unlocked, or the characters are too low power and get knocked out immediately.

Speaking of knockouts, there is also the problem of people quitting matches after only the first or second knockout, and the victor would miss out on the remaining knockouts to add to their totals. The amount of objectives also seems to be impossible to achieve and, as complaints mounted, MSF released a blog post specifically about RTA.

Much of the complaints will be addressed in-time, and really, matchmaking already feels to be more balanced than it did initially. Also, the blog post shed more light on the fact that each player doesn’t have to complete every daily and/or weekly objective to achieve the season-long rewards which most content creators were already cracking into. Here is a great video from Wolverthor where he breaks down what you can do and what you can skip: HERE

MSF did eliminate the week- and season-long goals of knockouts but even still, there are plenty of objectives to do to make your rewards goals without needing to complete every objective.

Real-Time Arena Benefits

While RTA may not be liked by players, it is a necessary evil because you must participate in two rounds of RTA to accomplish your daily objectives list. The rewards are actually pretty good for completing the game mode objectives. If you play it well, you can score A LOT of gear, and even character shards. On the free run of the rewards you can accrue 45 shards of a top-flight character (this season will be BEAST), and if you splurged for the premium rewards path then you have the chance to gain 55 more shards.

Now before we go too far into the lovefest for RTA, there are still some concerns. RTA is tied up with the newly introduced Battle Pass. The Battle Pass is probably worth a post all by itself, since every game nowadays has to cash in on that concept. But with shards being earned through the Pass, there is the possibility that the developers could start using RTA to release new toons.

That might work fine with a 2-star unlock like Yellow Jacket, since they have 45 shards included for the character on the free run of Battle Pass. However, if they made the toon a 100 shard unlock like Iceman, then the player might be compelled or even pushed into buying the premium run just for the extra 55 shards.

To date, I would argue that MSF is a very free-to-play-friendly mobile game. However, there is a bit of fear that the game is moving to pay-to-play with the introduction of the Battle Pass. Again, this is a post for another time.

I want to end this discussion with my strategy for breezing through RTA. You absolutely need to complete all of the really easy daily objectives. This includes:

Get a win
Get 15 Knockouts
70-90% of the character abilities

You will also need to go big for one week and clean house with those objectives. At the beginning of the week you need to see what the long goals are, and if you have high-level toons that fit your 600 ability objectives, you need to go all-in on that week.

Set your team and filter through the low number objectives until you only have the long goals left and then just grind away. If you can clean sweep one full week then you can go rather minimal on the other weeks which has made it much less of a grind for me!

Well I hope this helps you take your Squad from a D+ to a B- Commander!

Game Radar

Blitz: Monday’s Blitz is the hard-hitting Wakandan, Killmonger. Thursday is the first round of Blitz for BISHOP! Iceman returns for his second wave next week.

Upcoming Events: None.

Upcoming Legendary: Jubilee is here! You need Pym Tech to unlock, congrats to those who are ready for her. Man, it is really hard to say congrats and not sound sarcastic…

Black Bolt: April 27th, August 17th, December 7th (Requires Asgardians 5-star)

Shuri: May 11th, August 31st (Requires Spider-verse 5-star)

Ebony Maw: May 25th, September 14th (Requires Inhumans 5-star with Black Bolt)

Phoenix: June 8th, September 28th (Requires Mystic Villain Controller 6-star)

Star-Lord: June 22nd, October 12th (Requires Guardians or Ravagers 5-star)

Nick Fury: July 20th, November 11th (Requires Kree Minions 5-star)

Magneto: August 3rd, November 23rd (Requires X-Men and/or Brotherhood 5-star)

Marvel Strike Force Legendary calendar — Marvel Strike Force Legendary Calendar by Twitch.tv/AMVX

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