The Combat Arena

The Combat Arena is a walled arena that runs only on your computer: no sign-in, no server, and nothing you do there touches your characters or the realm. Open it with Arena on the character screen, under Play in the launcher, or from Practice offline on the sign-in screen. Leave returns you to the launcher (or the sign-in).

The Combat Arena is a walled arena that runs only on your phone: no sign-in, no server, and nothing you do there touches your characters or the realm. Open it with Arena on the character screen or from Practice offline on the sign-in screen, which works before you have signed in.

Five ways to fight

1. Choose your fight: pick your fighter, the arena (Small 24 × 24 m, Medium 40 × 40 m or Large 40 × 72 m), up to four allies beside you and one to five foes (fighters of every race, or beasts), a difficulty from Easy to Champion, and whether friendly fire is on. Up to five a side. Free-for-all makes every fighter a side of their own; On horseback puts you and every fighter in the saddle (the Medium or Large arena; beasts never ride).
2. Challenge ladder: alone, round after round. Twelve rounds climb from a single easy fighter to the arena's champion beast; past them the ladder never ends, and every round is harder than the last of its kind. Win a round and Next round takes you on; lose one and Retry round meets the same foes in that round once more, your climb going on, while Change fight starts a new climb.
3. Random bout: fortune picks your race, Path, Class and weapon, your foe, a fighter or a beast, and the arena; now and then the bout is fought on horseback. The results card tells you who you were.
4. Joust: you and one rider, each with a lance, at the two ends of the Large arena with a wooden tilt down the middle. Keep to your side of the tilt and ride: at a gallop the lance lowers on its own, and you aim its point with the mouse. Ride to the end, turn, and come again until one of you falls.
5. Survival: wave after wave of foes, people and beasts in turn, each wave larger or tougher than the last. Between waves you get a few seconds' breath and some health back. It never ends; your record is the most waves you held. When you fall, Retry wave takes the stand up again at the wave you fell in, at full health and against the same foes (a stand taken up partway sets no record), and Start over begins again at wave 1.

Your fighter

Choose one of four ready-made builds (a level 20 Swordsman, or a level 75 Crusader, Elementalist or Ranger) and a weapon set, or open the Character Builder to make your own; it is used only in the arena. Opened from the character screen, the arena also offers the character you had chosen there, as the roster shows it: its race, class, level and weapons, with its class's usual skills and armour. A ladder keeps the fighter you started it with.

The fight

1. A count of three starts every match; nobody moves until it ends.
2. Every fighter stands on a ring in its side's colour: blue for yours, red for the other. The bar at the top counts who is still standing on each side and how long is left.
3. Fighters are people with real builds: they fight as players do, with the same weapons, armour and spells. Mages keep their distance, clerics mend their side, archers shoot.
4. If you fall, your allies fight on and the camera watches one of them: Space, or a click or tap on the name, watches someone else. A side wins when the other has no one standing; after five minutes with both sides standing, the match is a draw.
5. With friendly fire off (the default), blows never hurt your own side and no harmful spell takes hold on them: a bolt aimed past an ally flies on through him, while heals and blessings still reach him. No single blow takes more than four tenths of a fighter's health, so no fight ends in one swing.
6. On horseback, ride past your foe with them on your right, your sword arm's side, and strike as you come level, then wheel round for the next pass. A blade that reaches both a rider and his horse strikes the rider. A galloping horse that runs into someone on foot knocks them down or throws them. Horses can be killed; a rider whose horse falls fights on foot. The Combat tab lists every blow that lands, on horses too.

1. A count of three starts every match; nobody moves until it ends.
2. Every fighter stands on a ring in its side's colour: blue for yours, red for the other. The bar at the top counts who is still standing on each side and how long is left.
3. Fighters are people with real builds: they fight as players do, with the same weapons, armour and spells. Mages keep their distance, clerics mend their side, archers shoot.
4. If you fall, your allies fight on and the camera watches one of them: Jump, or a click or tap on the name, watches someone else. A side wins when the other has no one standing; after five minutes with both sides standing, the match is a draw.
5. With friendly fire off (the default), blows never hurt your own side and no harmful spell takes hold on them: a bolt aimed past an ally flies on through him, while heals and blessings still reach him. No single blow takes more than four tenths of a fighter's health, so no fight ends in one swing.
6. On horseback, ride past your foe with them on your right, your sword arm's side, and strike as you come level, then wheel round for the next pass. A blade that reaches both a rider and his horse strikes the rider. A galloping horse that runs into someone on foot knocks them down or throws them. Horses can be killed; a rider whose horse falls fights on foot. The Combat tab lists every blow that lands, on horses too.

Nothing is won or lost for the realm: no experience, no items, no gold. Your wins, losses, best climb, jousts and best Survival stand are kept on this device and shown on the setup card.

Pausing, yielding and leaving

Escape opens the game menu and the fight holds still behind it until you return. In a fight its top rows are Yield the Fight, which gives the match up at once (it counts as a loss, and the results card offers the retry as after any defeat), and Leave the Arena. Log Out in Options leaves the arena too.

During a fight two buttons stand in the top-right corner. Pause opens the game menu and the fight holds still behind it until you return; Leave the Arena is in that menu. Yield gives the match up: tap it once and it turns red, tap it again to yield. It counts as a loss, and the results card offers the retry as after any defeat. Log Out, at the top of Options, leaves the arena too.