So, Arid Ruins is here, and it's a ruin alright.

So like Labyrinth, I feel Arid Ruins doesn't really cater to very many people.  It certainly doesn't cater to me:

1) Poor rewards.  Over half the time I get HB or Soul Stones.  Both of which I have absolutely zero use for.

2) Buggy gameplay.  Way too often, the Arid Ruins just freezes and I have to quit.

3) It's too long.  Running it 5 times a day for garbage hasn't really sat well with me.

4) Way too random.  From the enemies to the rewards, it might as well just be dice rolls to me.

5) There's no progression.  No leaderboard.  No levels.  Nothing.  It's just a random event in a vacuum with a small chance of shards.

So in the end, I do not like it, but I'll continue to do it cuz the occasion slime and karma stone for free make it worth it I guess.  What do you all think?  Maybe I'm just not seeing it right.

Note: I do not run AR with randoms.  I do it with my Lava group, and so far none of us really care for it.

For whatever reason, I feel pretty certain IGG will fix the bugs.  And I'll play any game mode that doesn't take too long and gives me a chance for slimes and merits.  IGG finally seems to be dolling out more soulstones these days, so I have hope I can actually get enough to a non-PD hero sometime in 2018.

My complaint is the random hero selection.  My Greens are mixed with my Legends, and it's a pain to sacrifice the Greens every time in round 1.

@Hanyabull I agree with you totally and it does not interest me enuf to do the runs on a regular basis.

Takes too long to complete, don't understand why they have not put in the 4x speed animation, rewards sucks for the time and effort required.

To improve,
- add the 4x speed animation,
- increase the rewards e.g if soulstones then include those for the new heros otherwise remove soulstones and put in red crystals, more karmic rocks and such.
- Let the crest, pets and artifacts be assigned like in the defending team of arena i.e. once set, it stays so long as the heros selected are not removed from the line up.
- let us select the heros to drop and its sequence
- fix the bugs eg hangs for no reason
- allow the selection of a team member from friends list even if they are not logged on just like in LR. This removes the time and effort needed to coordinate with each other.
- from dungeons 2 onwards, the heros attack is way too random, it would be better if we are able to drop the heros for every dungeon level. Let the player play not your AI.

I wouldn't be interested in AR in its present design.

Said it from first day... 4x button please!

So a bit of an update with Arid Ruins (at least from my point of view).

I've since been running 6 greens with 4 legends, and basically haven't the best possible team my partner and I could muster right out the gate, and it's been working well.  (Thanks Bdelley!)

First off, I don't switch any more crests/artifacts.  Second off, I don't have those situations where we don't have GH out and get smoked in Round 4/5.  Thirdly, we now clear round 5 (even the massive Skeletica version) more than we lose it.

I'm not sure if we are losing anything doing it this way, but it certainly has sped things up for us tremendously.

I still don't particularly care for Arid Ruins, but at least we are beating it more than not.

Run the first 5 runs and that’s it for me..... after that book rewards are no use for me

I don't do AR or SS, and barely do Lab. 

The rewards aren't worthwhile.

I don't like AR, SS, and Lab either because of how much time they collectively take relative to rewards, but I do them for similar reasons as Hanyabull.  I've made it my life's goal to do every game mode with a reasonably low amount of effort so as not to cut into family or work time.

1. SS is easy and fast, so I go with minimal thought about hero and gear selection and don't care if I lose -- it didn't take long, I got shards, and I made someone happy.  I have lots of low might smurf accounts that I like to enter SS with a single hero knowing someone out there just breathed a happy sigh of relief.
2. Lab is fast and easy if you don't put a lot of thought into it, don't bother changing heroes or gear based on opponents, and don't gem failures or try to keep going. It goes fast and rewards are good relative to how little time is involved.  I usually skip real players since I more often lose.  I suffer the "you are high might so must have amazing heroes" IGG pairing algorithm penalty.  It got so bad at ~310k that I ate might heroes to drop to ~280k.  Still bad, but not as.  I can now win some Lab battles, can win LR battle altars again, and raiding is faster to find high loot opponents who won't kill my heroes.  Now if you have a great Lab team, I could see it taking a very long time.  But even still... not much actual time if doing other things while waiting on the game.
3. AR, while not exactly fast, can take very little actual time if you have a partner who agrees with a "start and walk away" plan -- easier if you have two accounts and devices so don't have to ever wait on anyone or be responsible to meet at a certain time or pay attention.  I start my battles, dump the up to 6 green heroes on both accounts, and then let loose with our 4 purples on each account.  I then do other things and don't drop spells.  If you have adequate teams, you can win round 4 or 5 every time.  I run 15 of these and usually win round 5: my main account with a friend's (2x anubis, 2x walla, 2x ghoulem, dove, sasquatch), my main to feed my best smurf (anubis, 2x walla, 2x ghoulem, aries, dove, sasquatch), and then my main to feed another friend's (2x anubis, 2x walla, 2x ghoulem, 2x sasquatch).  Bonus points to anyone who can determine which heroes are on my main... hint: I don't change my heroes based on partner.

Unfortunately, you don't get the opportunity for max rewards in Arid Ruins when you use 4 Legends and 6 ordinarys (It may be possible for max rewards if all of your heroes are maxed out including with destiny)

I've gone throw AR with 4 Legends and 6 Ordinary and it's a breeze to complete all 5 levels no problem. Those rewards I chose from aren't max though

....you can get the same rewards if you just enter a super strong team and complete level 1 and then quit. I've done that plenty. I've completed wave 5 a few times with a strong team and the rewards at the end are normally 2 mastery essence and 4 other things. When I complete level 5 with the 4-6 method, 2 4x champion essence are among the choices. So, if you're worried about the length of time, just enter a max team and complete level 1 5 times.

As for SS and Lab, why wouldn't you do them? Squad Showdown literally takes 5 minutes and it's free fame and shards.

Lab is cake to earn free fame, blue crystals and chests. Although, one of the goblins are a pain. Blue crystals seem to take forever and a day to save and it's about 12-13 mil just to level up 1 hero to level 100 inscription.