That still doesn't explain how an arena leaderboard can be ruled by garbage squads.
But yea, it sucks when a group of players is locking you out at pay-out. Best advice i can give is for you to join them. It's not perfect, but it's better than constandly being locked out.
It would be extremely hard to stay at the top if you have a garbage squad even with a huge help from guild mates. I personally ran into this awhile back they didn't have garbage squads but weren't elite either. The lesser of the group couldn't beat the top of the groups squads though. They would move up as a group and then the top squads would put in Biggs leads. So the lesser players could pass them once they were all at the top. Then the best ones would fix there squads once they fell to make a wall to protect the lesser squads. The guild fell apart so isn't an issue anyway.
call me crazy, but it's that just waaaaaay too much effort to get your groupmates to rank high? I would be amazed if this isn't an extremely rare thing to happen on leaderboards.
Maybe i'm just being naive though.
I don't know why the guild fell apart it could have been that the top players got sick of playing that game. I don't know. But it's possible to do. At that time about half of the top 50 were from that guild. Which is the numbers you would probably need for that to work. Don't see it as a long term problem even if it happened on a shard. Especially with tw and new content isn't worth the effort when you could just get guild mates from other shards that have a similar roster strength.
Pls change the PvP system and I'm fine with STR content...or whatever comes next
Arena system is teh stinky ''mafia'' poo right now so it has to be changed! Do some rankings, win to loss ratio, etc. There should be plenty of ideas floating around from actual players. And if you really make ships faster, you can squeeze that one hour timer to 30mins. We don't want to spend daily 2 hours just for arena+ships (and to mention that we are not even fighting, but just waiting for that lame timer to expire = waster of our time and not fun at all) so 1h30min would be much better or make it a challange and do the same to arena, 5-6min timer max. You can beat them right, but can you finish your opponent in time?! <- This should provide some loses(draws).
btw: NS are really boring and that's the polite version.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
One problem (among many) is that the PVP arena isn’t PVP, nor is it an arena. PVP implies you are playing another player, preferably in real time, which is not the case at all. Calling it an arena implies that it’s a competition to be the best, not a collaboration to take turns on top.
Make it real time, make the payout times all the same, and give rewards based on wins rather than how high you ended up at your payout time.
Many other teams do PVP “seasons” that end after a few days and grant rewards based on performance. That’s a much better design that this mess we have.
There is an easy fix for this. Well, easy in concept. At the end of each hour players store up part of the final payout based on their current rank. At payout they receive whatever they stored.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
No one would be interested in manipulating arena anymore. Rewards would be more fair based on offense and defense, not one long push to the top.
This would encourage more competitiveness, empower players to choose when and how to invest their attempts, and bring an end to these looking for shardmates to help me exploit payout times posts.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
So, competitive players need to stay in top ranks for several hours every day instead of just playing arena for 45 minutes a day? No thanx!
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
So, competitive players need to stay in top ranks for several hours every day instead of just playing arena for 45 minutes a day? No thanx!
Don't have to stay there for hours...just a little longer than the next guy. Or just average higher really. This would actually give some value to defense as well. It would solve the problem of people who are locked into a payout time that doesn't fit their schedule. It wouldn't make doing battles shortly after payout time almost pointless (and you wouldn't have to worry that you were knocking someone down right before their payout). I see a lot of potential with this system.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
There is an easy fix for this. Well, easy in concept. At the end of each hour players store up part of the final payout based on their current rank. At payout they receive whatever they stored.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
No one would be interested in manipulating arena anymore. Rewards would be more fair based on offense and defense, not one long push to the top.
This would encourage more competitiveness, empower players to choose when and how to invest their attempts, and bring an end to these looking for shardmates to help me exploit payout times posts.
Dear God no. I don't want to have the constant thought of where I am in arena to be niggling at the back of my brain... This game takes up too much of my time already.
I like what you're trying to do though - the current system is open to the kind of exploitation seen by OP, which would completely ruin the fun if it happened to me.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
So, competitive players need to stay in top ranks for several hours every day instead of just playing arena for 45 minutes a day? No thanx!
Don't have to stay there for hours...just a little longer than the next guy. Or just average higher really.
You earn rewards every hour according to the suggestion — not just points for an overall ranking. If you want the full prize you need to stay on top for several hours. That's all according to Aluxtu's suggestion. If you have a tweak for it to not require you to play 24/7 then feel free to bring it forth.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
The “technical challenges” answer from CG without more details makes me doubt the truthfulness of that answer. I wish CG would just say “Arena is such an important game component to our highest spenders that we’re hesitant to make any changes.”
It’s a shame as PvP Arena is such a stale feature of the game that has hardly changed.
I wish they would create an semi-regular event that was essentially PvP arena wher they could try out new Arena features (faction bonuses, mixing shards, alternative payout schemes, etc.).
An Arena-like special event like this would allow for testing and feedback of new features for Arena without risking upsetting the playerbase. If you found a feature that was universally loved by playerbase and CG alike, you could incorporate it into main arena.
Your pretty much referring to tournaments and they did not work out well
Tournaments were a major fail, but it’s a shame that instead of learning and trying new things they stopped innovating. I know that there has been a lot of excitement around Arena, but with rotating bonuses for factions or characters.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
The “technical challenges” answer from CG without more details makes me doubt the truthfulness of that answer. I wish CG would just say “Arena is such an important game component to our highest spenders that we’re hesitant to make any changes.”
It’s a shame as PvP Arena is such a stale feature of the game that has hardly changed.
I wish they would create an semi-regular event that was essentially PvP arena wher they could try out new Arena features (faction bonuses, mixing shards, alternative payout schemes, etc.).
An Arena-like special event like this would allow for testing and feedback of new features for Arena without risking upsetting the playerbase. If you found a feature that was universally loved by playerbase and CG alike, you could incorporate it into main arena.
The lack of technical knowledge of what they are doing makes me sceptical of your doubts.
The grouping of shards is a very accurate and balanced way to group people in a freemium game. Because $$=time. It allows committed player and $$ players to have an advantage in any guild/full player base content. Preserving this is very important to the health of the game. Solving problems in that system are import too, but it cant have a drastic effect on the over all base of the game like switching shards would.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
The “technical challenges” answer from CG without more details makes me doubt the truthfulness of that answer. I wish CG would just say “Arena is such an important game component to our highest spenders that we’re hesitant to make any changes.”
It’s a shame as PvP Arena is such a stale feature of the game that has hardly changed.
I wish they would create an semi-regular event that was essentially PvP arena wher they could try out new Arena features (faction bonuses, mixing shards, alternative payout schemes, etc.).
An Arena-like special event like this would allow for testing and feedback of new features for Arena without risking upsetting the playerbase. If you found a feature that was universally loved by playerbase and CG alike, you could incorporate it into main arena.
The lack of technical knowledge of what they are doing makes me sceptical of your doubts.
The grouping of shards is a very accurate and balanced way to group people in a freemium game. Because $$=time. It allows committed player and $$ players to have an advantage in any guild/full player base content. Preserving this is very important to the health of the game. Solving problems in that system are import too, but it cant have a drastic effect on the over all base of the game like switching shards would.
I’ll keep this going because I think it’s an interesting and important discussion, and I think we’re bringing up good counterpoints to each other.
For example, I agree that the time you start playing the game is a metric to match players against. One big issue in the shard I’m in is that our shard, for whatever reason, is stacked with active US Eastern and US Central players. We have about 50 players all trying to move up to top spots within the same 2 hour timeframe. Fast forward 6-9 hours later and we have abour five players in random timezones that have *literally* no competition. They take the number one spot in their timezone everyday, and they never get knocked back. Because they have such an advantage when it comes to crystals, they generally hold rank very well, and can quickly gear up to respond to meta changes. This is not “fair”, as I am competing against 30-40 different people during my payout hous, and some “off timezone” players literally don’t have any competition.
Now, I fully acknowledge that designing a fix for this is difficult (but from a design perspective, not a technical perspective).
Wouldn’t it be great from CG’s perspective to be able to test and see what happens if you reassigned shards so that it was only one timezone per shard? See how the players react. Do they like the change or do they hate it? How does that affect crystal payouts on a macro level? How does that affect players in timezones where the playerbase is small? My suggestion is to create an event they could use to test this. A weeklong event, almost exactly the same as arena (once a day payout for crystals) where they can effectively do A/B testing for new arena features, like mixing up shards.
Now, back to my point. The difficulty in switching up of shards isn’t a technical issue (its probably literally just updating a handful of values for each player in the database, simming Galatic War probably updates more fields in the database). It’s a design and balance issue.
I’m calling the “technical challenges” answer from CG as bogus. This is an important distinction because “technical challenges” could imply “we care about this, but can’t do it even if we wanted to.” A more truthful answer I’d appreciate is something like “We could do this, but are prioritizing our efforts in other areas.”
I admit, my agenda in discussing this topic is to draw more attention to much needed QOL changes to the game dealing with arena (not being able to change timezones after starting the game, figuring out a way to balance whatever CG’s undisclosed interests are in putting payout hours right during dinner time against players real life work-family-life balance, moving out of shards controlled by “mafias” of players).
If players realize this is something that CG would actually address if players voiced their concerns, as opposed to an impossiblility imposed on CG because of technology, we might see some of these changes happen. Multi-sim of daily challenges and Galactic War are good examples of QOL changes driven by players voicing their concerns and pressing CG until they addressed the issues.
I realized the importance of changing my timezone within a week of playing this game and created another account to take advantage of it accordingly. It helps in not just PVP payout, but also when bonus energy and shop refreshes trigger. There are also guides on this very forum that advise doing so and have been here for like 2 years or so. This is also the number 1 tip I give to newbies. For you to start complaining about it now, after 2 years, is pretty much a joke.
Well the Arena shard I am in has 10 players in my po and they organize on attacking before p.o.
If am am rank1 30 minutes before p.o. I will be attacked non-stop and not be able to attack even if I spend all my time the last 30 minutes resfreshing and hitting enter.
If I can I'll post a video (not sure if I can record that much on my phone but I will try)
All players in the shard chat coordinate on keeping out of top 20. This specific shard chat has 28+ members.
This is organized to a degree that makes the game rather lame. What is the purpose of an arena if it serves to simply give the same crystal mafia a high crystal reward so they can retain a favorable position and not spend too much money in the game.
Make it equal for all. rotate/shuffle shards every 3 months.
The dev team has stated from a technical standpoint they cannot shuffle shards.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
The “technical challenges” answer from CG without more details makes me doubt the truthfulness of that answer. I wish CG would just say “Arena is such an important game component to our highest spenders that we’re hesitant to make any changes.”
It’s a shame as PvP Arena is such a stale feature of the game that has hardly changed.
I wish they would create an semi-regular event that was essentially PvP arena wher they could try out new Arena features (faction bonuses, mixing shards, alternative payout schemes, etc.).
An Arena-like special event like this would allow for testing and feedback of new features for Arena without risking upsetting the playerbase. If you found a feature that was universally loved by playerbase and CG alike, you could incorporate it into main arena.
The lack of technical knowledge of what they are doing makes me sceptical of your doubts.
The grouping of shards is a very accurate and balanced way to group people in a freemium game. Because $$=time. It allows committed player and $$ players to have an advantage in any guild/full player base content. Preserving this is very important to the health of the game. Solving problems in that system are import too, but it cant have a drastic effect on the over all base of the game like switching shards would.
I’ll keep this going because I think it’s an interesting and important discussion, and I think we’re bringing up good counterpoints to each other.
For example, I agree that the time you start playing the game is a metric to match players against. One big issue in the shard I’m in is that our shard, for whatever reason, is stacked with active US Eastern and US Central players. We have about 50 players all trying to move up to top spots within the same 2 hour timeframe. Fast forward 6-9 hours later and we have abour five players in random timezones that have *literally* no competition. They take the number one spot in their timezone everyday, and they never get knocked back. Because they have such an advantage when it comes to crystals, they generally hold rank very well, and can quickly gear up to respond to meta changes. This is not “fair”, as I am competing against 30-40 different people during my payout hous, and some “off timezone” players literally don’t have any competition.
Now, I fully acknowledge that designing a fix for this is difficult (but from a design perspective, not a technical perspective).
Wouldn’t it be great from CG’s perspective to be able to test and see what happens if you reassigned shards so that it was only one timezone per shard? See how the players react. Do they like the change or do they hate it? How does that affect crystal payouts on a macro level? How does that affect players in timezones where the playerbase is small? My suggestion is to create an event they could use to test this. A weeklong event, almost exactly the same as arena (once a day payout for crystals) where they can effectively do A/B testing for new arena features, like mixing up shards.
Now, back to my point. The difficulty in switching up of shards isn’t a technical issue (its probably literally just updating a handful of values for each player in the database, simming Galatic War probably updates more fields in the database). It’s a design and balance issue.
I’m calling the “technical challenges” answer from CG as bogus. This is an important distinction because “technical challenges” could imply “we care about this, but can’t do it even if we wanted to.” A more truthful answer I’d appreciate is something like “We could do this, but are prioritizing our efforts in other areas.”
I admit, my agenda in discussing this topic is to draw more attention to much needed QOL changes to the game dealing with arena (not being able to change timezones after starting the game, figuring out a way to balance whatever CG’s undisclosed interests are in putting payout hours right during dinner time against players real life work-family-life balance, moving out of shards controlled by “mafias” of players).
If players realize this is something that CG would actually address if players voiced their concerns, as opposed to an impossiblility imposed on CG because of technology, we might see some of these changes happen. Multi-sim of daily challenges and Galactic War are good examples of QOL changes driven by players voicing their concerns and pressing CG until they addressed the issues.
yes I understand the PO situation and the people that have lighter hours, but when 12 people move up for one hour, then 5 the next, and a few others throughout the day. the people with no one in their PO, will still have to be able to beat those teams. its not like they get a hand out, but yes they do have it a little easier.
I am told by a programmer i work with that anything is possible. If i walk into his office and say i need a system that will sort X,Y, and Z based on parameters A,B,and C. I'm sure he could do it, but it is easy for me to design this on paper, building the tools and algorithms that do it (the technical side) is no that simple. The actual coded system that would be able to dynamically reassign the shards, could be technically "impossible" or also could take 6 months of a teams time to get it to where they want, and destroy the content timeline. (thats bad for the health of the game too). To be able to make this happen the algorithm could be "technically impossible" and just because you think a certain answer is "the answer" doesn't make it true.
They have already stated they are looking at the PO hour adjustment, so no worries. but we have no idea what the end result will be. Also it will not involve getting away from your shard.
I realized the importance of changing my timezone within a week of playing this game and created another account to take advantage of it accordingly. It helps in not just PVP payout, but also when bonus energy and shop refreshes trigger. There are also guides on this very forum that advise doing so and have been here for like 2 years or so. This is also the number 1 tip I give to newbies. For you to start complaining about it now, after 2 years, is pretty much a joke.
Still, many people often find a need to change their timezone after starting the game, like if they move to a new city in a different timezone or experience a change in their work/school schedules.
Yep, arena is the main stress factor of the game. That is because it is the most important area of the game, since this is where your crystal comes from. Although it seems the developers ignore all the issues related to arena. The payout time is stupid. The fact that people can talk to each other, even if not in the same guild, they can find each other and cooperate and rule the high ranks is a serious issue. I also suggested to remove the payout and be rewarded in some other way. Getting only 10 fights/day and give a reward based on the win/loss ratio of the 10 fights would be a lot better, and no more ranks. You won 10/10 get highest reward you won 0/10 get lowest reward. There would be no more cooperation and exploit. This could be done, but it will never be. Because people who are in top don`t need to buy crystals for money (low number) only those who are lower in ranks(high number). So basically if you rework the system, and make it reward you based on 10 fights win/loss ratio and no more ranking that would probably be better for those who cannot make it to the top 20 but would make CG lose money, since you won`t buy that many crystals anymore.
I also suggested to remove the payout and be rewarded in some other way. Getting only 10 fights/day and give a reward based on the win/loss ratio of the 10 fights would be a lot better, and no more ranks. You won 10/10 get highest reward you won 0/10 get lowest reward. There would be no more cooperation and exploit.
So, people would be rewarded for battling the weakest teams they can target instead if for climbing as high as possible? Why should battling weak teams earn you higher rewards? You're right. I don't think it will happen.
I also suggested to remove the payout and be rewarded in some other way. Getting only 10 fights/day and give a reward based on the win/loss ratio of the 10 fights would be a lot better, and no more ranks. You won 10/10 get highest reward you won 0/10 get lowest reward. There would be no more cooperation and exploit.
So, people would be rewarded for battling the weakest teams they can target instead if for climbing as high as possible? Why should battling weak teams earn you higher rewards? You're right. I don't think it will happen.
Or more along the lines of you don’t get to choose your opponent. Instead you progress for 10 battles against increasingly difficult opponents. We can call it Galactic War.
2 daily galactic wars and no arena any more, then?
if i'm being completely honest, i'd prefer 2 pre-nerf galactic wars over arena any day of the week and twice on sunday. The whole sniping/having to be online during pay-out to maintain rank thingy is not something i enjoy.
2 daily galactic wars and no arena any more, then?
if i'm being completely honest, i'd prefer 2 pre-nerf galactic wars over arena any day of the week and twice on sunday. The whole sniping/having to be online during pay-out to maintain rank thingy is not something i enjoy.
I mean really though, what is there to like about Arena besides the crystals? I don’t find any enjoyment out of playing it, waiting 10 minutes between attacks, having to spend more time in the game to maintain rank, and cooperating with others to get a better payout. The game mode itself is absolutely unenjoyable and if it weren’t the major source of crystals and a daily requirement, I’d not touch the arena at all.
2 daily galactic wars and no arena any more, then?
if i'm being completely honest, i'd prefer 2 pre-nerf galactic wars over arena any day of the week and twice on sunday. The whole sniping/having to be online during pay-out to maintain rank thingy is not something i enjoy.
I mean really though, what is there to like about Arena besides the crystals? I don’t find any enjoyment out of playing it, waiting 10 minutes between attacks, having to spend more time in the game to maintain rank, and cooperating with others to get a better payout. The game mode itself is absolutely unenjoyable and if it weren’t the major source of crystals and a daily requirement, I’d not touch the arena at all.
I do enjoy the battles and the competative aspect of it, how well my team is doing compared to the other players on my leaderboard. I just don't like pay-out.
2 daily galactic wars and no arena any more, then?
if i'm being completely honest, i'd prefer 2 pre-nerf galactic wars over arena any day of the week and twice on sunday. The whole sniping/having to be online during pay-out to maintain rank thingy is not something i enjoy.
I mean really though, what is there to like about Arena besides the crystals? I don’t find any enjoyment out of playing it, waiting 10 minutes between attacks, having to spend more time in the game to maintain rank, and cooperating with others to get a better payout. The game mode itself is absolutely unenjoyable and if it weren’t the major source of crystals and a daily requirement, I’d not touch the arena at all.
I do enjoy the battles and the competative aspect of it, how well my team is doing compared to the other players on my leaderboard. I just don't like pay-out.
I wouldn’t even describe arena as competitive — I’d call it cooperative or collaborative. The only “competition” is between those who are working together and those who aren’t. The game facilitates this and encourages it, which is a poor design.
Replies
I don't know why the guild fell apart it could have been that the top players got sick of playing that game. I don't know. But it's possible to do. At that time about half of the top 50 were from that guild. Which is the numbers you would probably need for that to work. Don't see it as a long term problem even if it happened on a shard. Especially with tw and new content isn't worth the effort when you could just get guild mates from other shards that have a similar roster strength.
Arena system is teh stinky ''mafia'' poo right now so it has to be changed! Do some rankings, win to loss ratio, etc. There should be plenty of ideas floating around from actual players. And if you really make ships faster, you can squeeze that one hour timer to 30mins. We don't want to spend daily 2 hours just for arena+ships (and to mention that we are not even fighting, but just waiting for that lame timer to expire = waster of our time and not fun at all) so 1h30min would be much better or make it a challange and do the same to arena, 5-6min timer max. You can beat them right, but can you finish your opponent in time?!
btw: NS are really boring and that's the polite version.
Changing that Shard ID value in the database is super duper hard.
Make it real time, make the payout times all the same, and give rewards based on wins rather than how high you ended up at your payout time.
Many other teams do PVP “seasons” that end after a few days and grant rewards based on performance. That’s a much better design that this mess we have.
As it is, calling it PVP is an absolute joke.
Example: held rank 1 for 3 hours, earned 20 crystals an hour
Dropped to rank 4 in 4th hour earned 10 crystals. Dropped to rank 20 for 5th and 6th hour earned 7 crystals per hour etc etc. Payout comes and their total for the day is granted.
No one would be interested in manipulating arena anymore. Rewards would be more fair based on offense and defense, not one long push to the top.
This would encourage more competitiveness, empower players to choose when and how to invest their attempts, and bring an end to these looking for shardmates to help me exploit payout times posts.
So, competitive players need to stay in top ranks for several hours every day instead of just playing arena for 45 minutes a day? No thanx!
Balancing out shards to not overload PO hours, balance player base on a factor that is similar to date started but not (since thats how its done right now) and not devalue the investments of people who have payed, just to name a few factors, are probably more difficult and would need to be considered when talking about a shard shuffle. the tools to examine this and make educated decisions on the entire player base would also be the tools needed to shuffle shards. its not just about moving people.
Those aren’t technical challenges, those are all design challenges. CG has great technical talent, they could easily solve any technical challenge related to shuffling or balancing arena shards.
The “tools to examine” this already exist. Like Tableau or R.
Don't have to stay there for hours...just a little longer than the next guy. Or just average higher really. This would actually give some value to defense as well. It would solve the problem of people who are locked into a payout time that doesn't fit their schedule. It wouldn't make doing battles shortly after payout time almost pointless (and you wouldn't have to worry that you were knocking someone down right before their payout). I see a lot of potential with this system.
The tools necessary to do this are technical challenges, but anyway, those are their words not mine. I'm just trying to make sure people have the information out there.
Dear God no. I don't want to have the constant thought of where I am in arena to be niggling at the back of my brain... This game takes up too much of my time already.
I like what you're trying to do though - the current system is open to the kind of exploitation seen by OP, which would completely ruin the fun if it happened to me.
Discord: Iona Starbound#5299
You earn rewards every hour according to the suggestion — not just points for an overall ranking. If you want the full prize you need to stay on top for several hours. That's all according to Aluxtu's suggestion. If you have a tweak for it to not require you to play 24/7 then feel free to bring it forth.
The “technical challenges” answer from CG without more details makes me doubt the truthfulness of that answer. I wish CG would just say “Arena is such an important game component to our highest spenders that we’re hesitant to make any changes.”
It’s a shame as PvP Arena is such a stale feature of the game that has hardly changed.
I wish they would create an semi-regular event that was essentially PvP arena wher they could try out new Arena features (faction bonuses, mixing shards, alternative payout schemes, etc.).
An Arena-like special event like this would allow for testing and feedback of new features for Arena without risking upsetting the playerbase. If you found a feature that was universally loved by playerbase and CG alike, you could incorporate it into main arena.
Tournaments were a major fail, but it’s a shame that instead of learning and trying new things they stopped innovating. I know that there has been a lot of excitement around Arena, but with rotating bonuses for factions or characters.
The lack of technical knowledge of what they are doing makes me sceptical of your doubts.
The grouping of shards is a very accurate and balanced way to group people in a freemium game. Because $$=time. It allows committed player and $$ players to have an advantage in any guild/full player base content. Preserving this is very important to the health of the game. Solving problems in that system are import too, but it cant have a drastic effect on the over all base of the game like switching shards would.
(love you @Kyno
I’ll keep this going because I think it’s an interesting and important discussion, and I think we’re bringing up good counterpoints to each other.
For example, I agree that the time you start playing the game is a metric to match players against. One big issue in the shard I’m in is that our shard, for whatever reason, is stacked with active US Eastern and US Central players. We have about 50 players all trying to move up to top spots within the same 2 hour timeframe. Fast forward 6-9 hours later and we have abour five players in random timezones that have *literally* no competition. They take the number one spot in their timezone everyday, and they never get knocked back. Because they have such an advantage when it comes to crystals, they generally hold rank very well, and can quickly gear up to respond to meta changes. This is not “fair”, as I am competing against 30-40 different people during my payout hous, and some “off timezone” players literally don’t have any competition.
Now, I fully acknowledge that designing a fix for this is difficult (but from a design perspective, not a technical perspective).
Wouldn’t it be great from CG’s perspective to be able to test and see what happens if you reassigned shards so that it was only one timezone per shard? See how the players react. Do they like the change or do they hate it? How does that affect crystal payouts on a macro level? How does that affect players in timezones where the playerbase is small? My suggestion is to create an event they could use to test this. A weeklong event, almost exactly the same as arena (once a day payout for crystals) where they can effectively do A/B testing for new arena features, like mixing up shards.
Now, back to my point. The difficulty in switching up of shards isn’t a technical issue (its probably literally just updating a handful of values for each player in the database, simming Galatic War probably updates more fields in the database). It’s a design and balance issue.
I’m calling the “technical challenges” answer from CG as bogus. This is an important distinction because “technical challenges” could imply “we care about this, but can’t do it even if we wanted to.” A more truthful answer I’d appreciate is something like “We could do this, but are prioritizing our efforts in other areas.”
I admit, my agenda in discussing this topic is to draw more attention to much needed QOL changes to the game dealing with arena (not being able to change timezones after starting the game, figuring out a way to balance whatever CG’s undisclosed interests are in putting payout hours right during dinner time against players real life work-family-life balance, moving out of shards controlled by “mafias” of players).
If players realize this is something that CG would actually address if players voiced their concerns, as opposed to an impossiblility imposed on CG because of technology, we might see some of these changes happen. Multi-sim of daily challenges and Galactic War are good examples of QOL changes driven by players voicing their concerns and pressing CG until they addressed the issues.
yes I understand the PO situation and the people that have lighter hours, but when 12 people move up for one hour, then 5 the next, and a few others throughout the day. the people with no one in their PO, will still have to be able to beat those teams. its not like they get a hand out, but yes they do have it a little easier.
I am told by a programmer i work with that anything is possible. If i walk into his office and say i need a system that will sort X,Y, and Z based on parameters A,B,and C. I'm sure he could do it, but it is easy for me to design this on paper, building the tools and algorithms that do it (the technical side) is no that simple. The actual coded system that would be able to dynamically reassign the shards, could be technically "impossible" or also could take 6 months of a teams time to get it to where they want, and destroy the content timeline. (thats bad for the health of the game too). To be able to make this happen the algorithm could be "technically impossible" and just because you think a certain answer is "the answer" doesn't make it true.
They have already stated they are looking at the PO hour adjustment, so no worries. but we have no idea what the end result will be. Also it will not involve getting away from your shard.
Still, many people often find a need to change their timezone after starting the game, like if they move to a new city in a different timezone or experience a change in their work/school schedules.
So, people would be rewarded for battling the weakest teams they can target instead if for climbing as high as possible? Why should battling weak teams earn you higher rewards? You're right. I don't think it will happen.
Or more along the lines of you don’t get to choose your opponent. Instead you progress for 10 battles against increasingly difficult opponents. We can call it Galactic War.
I'm glad players aren't part of the dev team.
if i'm being completely honest, i'd prefer 2 pre-nerf galactic wars over arena any day of the week and twice on sunday. The whole sniping/having to be online during pay-out to maintain rank thingy is not something i enjoy.
I mean really though, what is there to like about Arena besides the crystals? I don’t find any enjoyment out of playing it, waiting 10 minutes between attacks, having to spend more time in the game to maintain rank, and cooperating with others to get a better payout. The game mode itself is absolutely unenjoyable and if it weren’t the major source of crystals and a daily requirement, I’d not touch the arena at all.
I do enjoy the battles and the competative aspect of it, how well my team is doing compared to the other players on my leaderboard. I just don't like pay-out.
I wouldn’t even describe arena as competitive — I’d call it cooperative or collaborative. The only “competition” is between those who are working together and those who aren’t. The game facilitates this and encourages it, which is a poor design.