Fleet Arena Shard with a Competitive Disadvantage (August 2020)
My fleet arena shard was migrated in 2018. This was due to a "one off policy change" by CG since it was an "outlier in terms of population" and "this single shard definitely an outlying case and needs to be addressed" according to https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/169265/state-of-the-galaxy-5-11-18. The original shard was closed and two new ones were created. This was concluded based on other members of the shard. We were at an incredible disadvantage and could go from ranking 200 to 400 overnight. CG improved this but did not compensate us for almost 2 years of lost crystals and zeta mats.
After the migration, the difficulty continues for most of our shard, dropping easily if not doing regular climbing. In addition, a group of approximately 35-40 whales/krakens controls the top of the arena in an exclusive shard chat that does not allow new members. I have confirmed with them that they do not allow new members because they are too crowded. To show the strength and $ power of the group, these 35 or so players have any average GP of 6.85M and over 7,000 fleet arena wins. They come from several of the top guilds. Most of them get 1st in both arenas daily. 13 of them have all 3 of the currently hardest to obtain toons: both GLs and Luke! Another 6 have both GLs. Yes, I know you can say that doesn't matter for fleet... But it will matter when those players work together, fight at all times of the day, don't mind spending tons of crystals to refresh battles and drop you out of the top 30 within seconds despite your multiple refreshes. The cost of refreshing to obtain top 20 or better will exceed the rewards. This eliminates the reward for competing.
In addition to this exclusive whale shard chat, there is actually a secondary shard chat for those trying to overthrow the main one. This currently contains another 40+ active players. Despite their efforts, this group still cannot compete with the main chat and players finish outside of the top 30.
I've looked into a group of the next top 50 players in our fleet shard (this doesn't contain any of the top 35 members from the main chat). These, lets call them: "Group B," players have a GP average of 5.9M and over 3,500 fleet wins. A majority of Group B come first in squad arena mode daily. All of these pIayers are active in our fleet arena because they would otherwise be easily dropped outside of the top 100. I believe if most of these players were placed into a different fleet arena shard, they would be getting at least top 20 rewards. While I only looked into the top 85 players at one day, the Group B players that regularly try to be competitive in fleet would likely end up being a group of 100-200 players but I don't have the time to get data on all of them (for now).
We can't really compare fleet team stats since most of the them are maxed Negotiator or decent Malevolence teams that have been meta for so long, the teams are fairly similar.
I don't blame the main chat for this issue. They are aware of the incredibly large group of competitive players and want to protect their rewards. It is a problem that CG admitted and partially corrected and needs to be addressed again. We are all still at a significant loss of crystals and zeta mats going on for almost 4 years now. Please fix this...
Note: My previous post on this topic included now irrelevant facts due to being outdated.
After the migration, the difficulty continues for most of our shard, dropping easily if not doing regular climbing. In addition, a group of approximately 35-40 whales/krakens controls the top of the arena in an exclusive shard chat that does not allow new members. I have confirmed with them that they do not allow new members because they are too crowded. To show the strength and $ power of the group, these 35 or so players have any average GP of 6.85M and over 7,000 fleet arena wins. They come from several of the top guilds. Most of them get 1st in both arenas daily. 13 of them have all 3 of the currently hardest to obtain toons: both GLs and Luke! Another 6 have both GLs. Yes, I know you can say that doesn't matter for fleet... But it will matter when those players work together, fight at all times of the day, don't mind spending tons of crystals to refresh battles and drop you out of the top 30 within seconds despite your multiple refreshes. The cost of refreshing to obtain top 20 or better will exceed the rewards. This eliminates the reward for competing.
In addition to this exclusive whale shard chat, there is actually a secondary shard chat for those trying to overthrow the main one. This currently contains another 40+ active players. Despite their efforts, this group still cannot compete with the main chat and players finish outside of the top 30.
I've looked into a group of the next top 50 players in our fleet shard (this doesn't contain any of the top 35 members from the main chat). These, lets call them: "Group B," players have a GP average of 5.9M and over 3,500 fleet wins. A majority of Group B come first in squad arena mode daily. All of these pIayers are active in our fleet arena because they would otherwise be easily dropped outside of the top 100. I believe if most of these players were placed into a different fleet arena shard, they would be getting at least top 20 rewards. While I only looked into the top 85 players at one day, the Group B players that regularly try to be competitive in fleet would likely end up being a group of 100-200 players but I don't have the time to get data on all of them (for now).
We can't really compare fleet team stats since most of the them are maxed Negotiator or decent Malevolence teams that have been meta for so long, the teams are fairly similar.
I don't blame the main chat for this issue. They are aware of the incredibly large group of competitive players and want to protect their rewards. It is a problem that CG admitted and partially corrected and needs to be addressed again. We are all still at a significant loss of crystals and zeta mats going on for almost 4 years now. Please fix this...
Note: My previous post on this topic included now irrelevant facts due to being outdated.
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Replies
I have friends that sit in top 5, top 10 all day long and never get moved that spend less money that I do. Its frankly untenable. This shard should have been split into 4 at least. None of us were ever compensated for the years of low rewards we got.
I found one of your previous posts on this shard and a quote by @Kyno caught my eye.
"As they said in the post the split was due to population and no other factors. The 300-400 are still active from what we see of players who are in the chat but stopped caring as much about ships right now."
The entire reason they stopped caring about ships is because there was no point. Kyno was defending himself heavily but he has literally no clue how brutal this shard is or continues to be. I was hit 9 times in 4 hours recently and that same evening was hit 4 times in 3 hours. Of course I refreshed and hit back instantly but that costs a lot of crystals over a days time. And as I type this I got moved again for the 2nd time in 15 minutes. All top 50.
New pit raid and relic 8 materials have only been out for a few months so I thought I'd review my fleet shard for Relic 8 stats. Group A (the elite shard chat of about 33 members - that obtain ranks 1-3 daily) has 21 R8 capital ship toons (Mostly GK and a couple GGs). There's also about 5 Anakins at R8 as well in this group.
And Group B has another 12 R8 GKs. These are people that are very competitive in the shard (over 4,000 fleet wins logged on average) but not welcomed into main chat (due to overcrowding) and rarely finish in the top 30 at PO.
That's a total of at least 31 capital ships at Relic 8 currently running in my shard today...
I've reviewed the number of fleet wins from Group A (main shard chat) and Group B (not in main shard chat but very active) and calculated the average fleet wins and average fleet wins per day. This was done by taking the fleet shard wins for each player from my shard from 8/7/20 (as mentioned in my original post above) to 3/11/21 (random day I chose to grab all data), applying the number of days between those dates and averaging them for the respective groups. The numbers were surprising as I doubt any other shard can compare. Remember this is only fleet WINS, doesn't count losses, so number of actual battles per day would be higher.
GROUP A fleet wins average per day for about last 7 months: 6.5 WINS PER DAY!
GROUP A total fleet wins average: 7,900 TOTAL FLEET WINS on average.
This is for the 30 people in the main fleet shard chat, who typically rank 1-3 at payout daily.
GROUP B fleet wins average per day for about last 7 months: 4.5 WINS PER DAY!
GROUP B total fleet wins average: 5,630 TOTAL FLEET WINS on average
This is for the next 35 or so people that try to and usually fail to break top 30 at payout daily. This group seems to usually do all 5 of their battles each day and likely even refresh (I know I have) just to get the 50 crystal reward for rank 21-50.
Our shard chat has 63 people in it (not counting those who regularly climb but are not in the chat). Players regularly drop past 30 each day. Anyone who drops past that point will have to average 5+ wins to take top spots.
Each hour has it's own rotation and what not, but many if not all take the top spots at PO every day. So yes other shards do compare on the needed win average to climb daily.
From my understanding the reason for this was activity of the group as a whole, not due to any group keeping others out of the top edge. The level of activity you are noting is not extreme by any means, but yes it is made worse by the the way it has been organized.
In addition, if 63 people in your shard mostly claim top rewards, they have something to work for. The people in my shard that are not in the main shard chat, do not. Keep in mind, the most active portion of the group that I provided stats for, basically put in all 5 battles every day for 7 MONTHS to get the 50 crystal reward. Imagine the endurance for that...
As I mentioned in my OP, I'm not sure how large this Group B could be due to my lack of ability to track data on the top 200-400 people and general complexities of my shard. I do know several players that don't play fleets in my shard purely due to the inability to crack top 50 easily and float around in the 300-400s so they will always be excluded from my data. In any normal fleet, these people would be active and able to hit top 10. Also, people in my shard seem to be active in waves at a time and then become unsatisfied/uninterested again. This is why I've captured the additional stats below to show how active the shard (or at least the top 90 people) is over a much smaller time period:
STATS UPDATE 3/23/21:
GROUP A fleet wins average per day for about last ~2 weeks: 7.8 WINS PER DAY
This is the 32 people in the main shard chat.
GROUP B fleet wins average per day for about last ~2 weeks: 4.8 WINS PER DAY!
This Group B was expanded to the contain the NEXT TOP 60 PLAYERS (after the 32 noted in Group A). None of these people break top 30 regularly.
R8 fleet commanders still don't make much difference compared to R7 unless you insist on using the same capital ship yourself against them.
Total fleet wins don't tell you anything about the current level of activity - current number of daily battles does.
I doubt that this is such unique behavior for a veteran fleet shard. I see it as well on one of my fleet shards (while on the other reaching top-10 is quite easy).
And that's another part of the problem. It seems like easy fleet shards are far more plentiful than hard ones for similar veteran players. My shard is on the extreme end and has been since the beginning. Unfortunately, the issue was never resolved properly the first time. The recent fleet wins per day stats shows how incredibly busy the shard still is and I believe there are few shards, if any, that can match those numbers.
The easy one I referred to is much younger. You can't compare the two.
AND LETS TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH TURN METER KENOBI FLEET GETS!
2) a post in April 2021 implying that the Negotiator or Grievous fleets need to be paid for is absolutely ridiculous.
3) your rebel fleet could compete if you geared up Bistan and SRP. Expecting a fleet that was meta 2 years ago to still be competitive with key parts missing is your other mistake.
Are you in the shard this thread is devoted to?
Nope... Didn't read the OP it seems. That post sounds like something from maybe 2 years ago for our shard
It appears that you might have allowed most people into your fleet shard chat because it is possible (although difficult) to make everyone receive top rewards at PO. If this was done at the beginning of our fleet merge change, there would likely be 200 people interested in joining, which of course wouldn't be practical and why the shard is the way it is today. A large chunk of those outsiders have given up on fleet due to the circumstances, but as discussed above, there are still 60+ players willing to do max battles daily for almost no rewards. There is still no comparison to that.
How you interpret the information you have access to is very biased, which is the point I was trying to make before.
The things you say are unique to your shard are not entirely accurate.
I was traveling for work and didnt want to change my timezone, so I could not battle at my usual time. I did battle each day, all 5, I didnt just stay in any position. I dropped to 115 as my lowest drop from where I left it the night before.
How your group decides to group themselves is the choices they have made and has no bearing on what should be done by CG regarding your shard. The original split was done due to the activity being higher than the norm. The activity on your shard now does not fall out of the normal range.
You need the big picture. This is a very stale part of the game and we have an extremely difficult time climbing, since the beginning of fleets. CG actually acknowledged this and tried to fix it, which was unprecedented, but it was not enough.
We can't really compare shards if you don't have similar stats to provide. Which is why I'll ask again if I can review your top 50. While its somewhat helpful, I'd still prefer to compare the players in the 50-250 range (which is where are problem exists) but that's just not really possible without a significant amount of help from you or someone in your shard and I don't expect that. Do you have any suggestions on how we can compare? I'm just here to list what I have and to provide info to CG that this is still an obvious problem.
You seem to be confusing 2 issues. The original issue had nothing to do with how the shard was organized, or even really about how many players cracked the top 30.
I am also saying you need to see the big picture, your shard is not exactly odd when you look at how many battles are done by your top 100 players. It seems comparable to other OG shards.
Your issue lies in how the players on your shard organized, it doesnt seem to be any particular level of activity that is abnormal. The values you state seem "normal" to my shard, and I'm not saying that is a standard or anything, just trying to help you understand that nothing you are saying is outside of what I see, and from my understanding of the original situation, they did it because your shard was an outlier in terms of data. If you are falling in line with our shard, you are not an outlier any more, you are just an active older shard, like others.
We can compare data all night long, but if the numbers were out of line, they would address it.
And your saying CG will address the issue. Well, it took them about 2 years to address it the first time so how do you know they are even monitoring it still? I believe they thanked a player from our shard when it was brought up the first time...
And while you might think yours is normal, you are still ranked in the 200s for total fleet wins in this game. Our shard represents 13% of the top # of fleet wins as I mentioned above. If you say there are enough OG shards that are similar, this amount shouldn't be so high... There are several "OG shards" that don't have any competition beyond the top 50. And sometimes people quit and won't even fall out of top 50. The extreme difference in competition between veteran shards can be surprising.
Once again, feel free to PM me your top 50 and I'll do the dirty work. Thanks!
as a mod, our job is to highlight posts about things like this. This is not the first time I have pointed this out to them to keep an eye on the situation.
as a player, I am just offering some perspective and as always trying to gain more insight on the goings on.
And I appreciate @Kyno sharing but would love more detailed info to compare. I totally understand not wanting to do the work. It is tedious... That's why I'm asking if anyone is willing to simply share the top 50 via screen shot in PM or on Discord, so I can do the work to compare shards stats for at least the top 50.
I think your past feedback. Pm crumb, or tophat or doja... or anyone not public..
Honestly, I forgot last time you asked, I have been a little busy IRL. I will look at out bot and see if I can get an easy way to screen shot a bunch of ally codes for you.
There was an issue with that shard when it was created. For whatever reason (some seem to think it came from the most active players hitting “join” the moment the fleet function went active), this one shard had way more competitive players in it than most.
After awhile, CG acted to address this but splitting the shard in 2. This presumably cut the number of “super active” players in half for each of the 2 sub-shards.
That still leaves 2 shards with a lot of active players. Probably they are 2 of the most active fleet shards on the game. Maybe even the top 2, who knows.
But at the end of the day, one shard has to be the most active. There is not much point of trying to prove that your shard is the “most” active, or that it’s top 2, top 5, etc. If they took action to address the “most active” shard that would only serve to make the second most active shard step up to take its place. Someone always has to be at the top.
The real question is:
Is this shard so much of an anomaly compared to other shards that more action needs to be taken?
Based on the silence from developers on the topic, it seems that they don’t. They put a fix in place and the two resultant shards are “close enough” to others (in their opinion) that no further action is warranted.
There is really no way for us to compare that ourselves as we simply don’t have the amount of data available to us that they do.
I feel your pain, as I’m in a fleet shard that I believe is “more active than average” but it’s just the way it is. By definition, about half of the shards will be “busier than average”.
TLDR - Don’t hold your breath waiting for this to be addressed any further.
Make sure to compare relevant stats. In your OP you listed total number of fleet wins which is completely irrelevant since it includes fleet wins from before your shard was split. Fleet wins since your shard was split may be relevant but you need to account for new players in the top-whatever ranks who haven't been actively pursuing top ranks all of the time or players who's level of activity fluctuate from day to day.
When listing average number of fleet battles won daily for the shard chat members you need to account for whether they sometimes do extra battles to help each other or to fight off outsiders (just to annoy them, drop them or keep them out of top ranks). Yes, those battles add to the activity on the shard but they are a result of how you're organised. They are by choice and not a result of how you were assigned to your shard.
Just a couple of examples. Long story short: Compare relevant data
Greatly appreciate it! And no rush.
@Waqui This was in a reply above (not my OP) and included more relevant and current stats, which includes about the top 100 players in the shard:
And what would the numbers be if you account for what I mentioned?
If you want to support your case it is, but yes, I know it's practically impossible to provide that data.