I'm writing this because lately this has become a huge problem.
The arena system in place encourages people to not enter, pass popped entries and allows several types of abuse.
As it is right now, the arena ticket is only used when you click on enter in arena. This means that people who know who they are going to be up against can just let the popped entry run out or pass it, and the other player(s) that went inside and wanted to fight lose the ticket.
Especially in coop and high rating solo arena this has become a huge issue. My coop group always only sends in one person because chances are high that the arena is going to be empty. The same happened to me last season in solo arena where Shikastyle someone would apply arena for 1 hour straight only to not go in when it popped against me. This is just a way of wasting peoples tickets and trying to win ladder not fairly or just being straight up annoying.
Additionally it happens that people go inside, see their opponents and instantly leave. This means that the rating for both players doesn't change and for the group or player that gets dodged it means a wasted ticket.
There are many solutions to this but these are my preferred ones:
1. Make it impossible to dodge -> when your entry proccs you are forced to go in and lose the ticket
2. Give back the ticket if the arena you joined in is empty (and no win rewards ofc) -> solves the problem of the lost tickets but not the perma apply into dodge problem
3. Have leaving an arena before it starts count as a loss -> solves the problem of dodging when already inside
All of this wouldn't matter if there was no reward for winning arena, but the rewards obviously incentivise abuse of the system that is currently in place:
Currently this is not about "Meeting the best players in PvP events in the last season!" but about meeting the players who dodged and abused the arena system the most. I'd be lying if I said I never abused any part of the system but it's the sad reality of the ladder system.
Admin pls respond (: