As we inch ever closer to the Arena of Valor World Cup set to take place in Los Angeles next month, there’s all manner of announcements popping up left, right and center. In the fifth edition of our Arena of Valor weekly news roundup, we’ll be looking at the latest esports organization to enter the scene, shrinking install sizes, and a skin that’s frankly out of this world!
The Valor Series Playoffs Take Place In Just A Few Days
We could just leave this particular subject with nothing but the title, but you’re likely looking for a bit of context; like what to expect, when and where, right? After weeks of grueling competition streamed live on Twitch, it’s finally time for the Valor Series semi-final.
For those who haven’t been paying much attention, the idea of the Valor Series is to act as a qualifier for the Arena of Valor World Cup set to kick off next month. Teams across Europe, Canada and America battled it out for the chance to jet off to E3 in Los Angeles this month for a shot at that coveted World Cup placement.
It looks as if specific times have yet to be announced, but you can expect the action to take place on June 12-13th. We’re looking at Pacific Time here, so Europeans may need to prepare for a long night of esports action.
Flipside Tactics snatches up Valor Series underdogs Team One Trick
The second time in recent memory that an established esports team has signed a group of homegrown heroes, Flipside Tactics, known for their successful Rocket League and CSGO teams, announced this week that they’d signed Team One Trick as their first Arena of Valor professional team.
For those who don’t remember, Team One Trick originally sat in 5th place on the NA top teams listing at the end of the 6-week Valor Series event. Due to some ‘schedule conflicts’ with Team Upsla, who sat above in 4th place, Team One Trick was able to take their spot, giving them the spot they needed to attend the playoffs at E3 this month. Likely looking for a quick way into the competition, Flipside Tactics swooped in to buy them out, hopefully giving them the confidence boost they’ll likely need to stay in the competition going forward.
India’s Arena of Valor ‘Lite’ Is Tested Overseas
Supposedly due to the Indian market not really caring about download limits anymore, Tencent still decided that taking up too much storage space would be a problem in the region. Shrinking down Arena of Valor’s install size for the Android version released in March was their master plan, making much of the game’s higher-quality assets and animations totally optional for those short on space.
Now, for reasons that honestly remain unclear, Arena of Valor ‘Lite’ is working its way onto devices around the world through a slow and steady rollout. According to the official forum post, the Lite version of the game cuts things like animations during character select and, and even drops audio and texture quality. It all sounds great for those with older phones who want to play without all the bells and whistles that would otherwise bog down their frame rate, but one of the highlights of the build is, somehow, lower fps during matches.
Rewards will be sent out to those who act as early testers for the ‘update’ that’s seemingly being forced on an undisclosed amount of players, but we’ll have to wait for someone (un)lucky enough to grab the Lite version to hopefully run some performance benchmarks. It might be good for your device storage, but it doesn’t sound all that great as a gameplay enhancer.
Astral Walker Tulen Basically Looks Like A New DC Hero
Rather than a bunch of lower prices skins hitting the store this week, we’re seeing one big expensive one. Similar to Ghost Samurai Yorn released a few weeks back, Astral Walker Tulen costs a whopping 2499 vouchers.
Released today, Tulen’s ‘Astral Walker’ skin turns the pretty boy favorite into some kind of otherworldly god befitting the pages of a popular comic book. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine seeing this guy open up black holes in your favorite superhero flicks, but he’s still just a master of lightning. Adhering to the lore that frequently calls him a demigod, Astral Walker Tulen looks like the final form of the lightning mage that sent Aleister in a deep downward spiral. But let’s face it; Tulen is the better fighter.
Tulen has been around the universe but is returning to Athanor for battle! #AoV #ArenaofValor https://t.co/C7pTQOYOkN pic.twitter.com/Ga02iEPRdr
— Arena of Valor (@ArenaofValor) June 8, 2018
AoV’s Usual Lag Spikes Became Full-Blown Server Issues Last Night
It’s difficult to pinpoint when this started and how long it took to fix, but Arena of Valor fans ran into connection troubles last night to spur the community team into action. Known for their shockingly slow announcements thanks to both the Nintendo Switch release and the last minute delay of the May update, it’s hard to say whether these connection issues where validated and fixed quickly, or went on for several hours before Tencent decided it wasn’t just vocal fans losing one too many fights.
Either way, Arena of Valor had some very major service outages late last night – or in the mid afternoon for those in America. Players reported frequent disconnects even when trying to confirm a match, leading to the community team to eventually “flip some switches and toggle some doo-hickeys”. I haven’t had time to personally check how things feel now, but here’s hoping the servers just needed their doo-hickeys toggled to solve those consistent lag spikes we’ve all suffered for months.
