"7AnimalMother;735098" wrote:
Find the people on your shard. Join Line chat with about 10 of the top 15. Protect each other during your payouts.
That's the key to 500 crystals a day.
I guess the trick is finding many of the people at the top of one's shard and getting them to agree to collude with you. The former is probably more difficult to do than the latter.
"DarthR244D;735120" wrote:
You can usually hold onto to #3 without any crystal refreshes. Everyone wants to be #1, no reason to waste crystals when you are trying to gain crystals.
I wish it were the case that everyone on my shard only wanted the one spot. The situation is ravenous and you can easily get sniped out of the top 5, and even the top 10, anytime within the hour before your payout. This isn't the case for the couple of whales whose teams hold against most on defense. I'm in the most optimal situation a f2p player can hope to be in, which is simply being able to win on offense pretty much whenever I want by throwing the correct team together for the task at hand. Effective whales on my shard have so much speed that most people have no chance and the whales can just use their one team over and over again.
"tRRRey;735189" wrote:
What's wrong with colluding in squad arena? Whatever it takes to get 500 crystals right :smile:
Haha. Yea, I guess the "wrongness" is simply a matter of perspective. As I said before, I'd rather have winning be about teams and playing strategy rather than sniping strategy and collusion. Personally, the latter is less satisfying, although still better than being the big "L", receiving little or less crystals. Arena mechanics seem to promote bad sportsmanship (in a manner of speaking) and generally being a jerk. One could surely argue that this is no different than how many find success in the real world, but wouldn't it be nice if when playing a silly game you could do well while maintaining decency? I like the "whatever it takes" mentality in certain contexts (it is part of the American spirit, after all!), but I think it has its proper place elsewhere.
"medetec;735216" wrote:
"rank at X time" based payouts are bad, especially for short time frames and small groups. It's almost always going to be an inconvenient time for a moderate percentage of your player base. It makes scheduling maintenance almost impossible for an internationally played game. It encourages "cheesy" gameplay like clock wars instead of playing the actual game.
Rewards should be based on the highest rank achieved during X time period, NOT the highest rank held at exactly X time. Look at Hearthstone, they pay out their arena ladder once a month based on the highest rank hit at any point that month. It's pretty universally liked, allows Blizzard to take servers down entirely at pre-scheduled times for proper maintenance without negatively effecting players, it allows players to play when they want, and it allows players who have reached their goal for the arena season to play fun decks instead of metasheeping 24/7.
Bingo. I think your suggested solution is the answer. It still requires daily focused action from the player and having an adequate team or teams to climb ranks. I can't imagine this scenario not being beneficial to everyone. Technically it could promote more crystal refreshes because people who have weaker teams that are still competitive may want to try again when they lose to a team or hit a difficulty wall. As it stand now, refreshes are a complete waste to these individuals because climbing during their payout would likely be a futile endeavor for them. Not only do they struggle to beat teams on offense, but they get knocked back while doing so because they are easy targets. Seems like it would be an opportunity for more refreshes.
God knows CG could use a good time to conduct game maintenance...
Your point about entitlement is spot-on--it is absolutely the counterproductive game mechanics that are the issue. You make a great, well presented argument all around.
"CaptainRex;735458" wrote:
People complaining about sniping is strange. What makes people think they are entitled to the top spots? Sniping is part of the game, so I've accepted that it could happen to me. The only thing in the arena that really annoys me is the dumb refresh button hiding potential opponents.
At base, I get what you're saying. For some people I think it is about entitlement, and this is strange. But just because someone is making an argument counter to the idea sniping is a good component of the game doesn't necessitate they themselves feel entitled to the rewards. As it goes for me, I'll simple pose this: why would I feel compelled to object to the concept of sniping when more often than not I receive 400 or more crystals at payout? It's not like that's not enough or I care about being the "one" who achieves the top spot during payout.
"CaptainRex;735464" wrote:
Oh, and when I'm fighting my way down, and the person I just beat targets me, ensuring we both go nowhere.
This very situation is part of the argument against the current mechanics. Besides, if you know your opponent was on the same payout as you but target them on your way up, why shouldn't they target you? I'm not saying this is what you do, but in the case it is, wouldn't you be asking for it?
@SnakesOnAPlane Yea, you may be a jerk if you enjoy it immensely :D I say this only after you referred to yourself as one...lol. I'm not looking to derail productive conversation. Not to mention, I'd be hypocritical coming down on you, as my graphical chart, while not as great as yours, would strike some similarities (if swgoh.gg displayed payout finishes correctly).
"Annastrasza;735621" wrote:
Sniping doesn't happen in low 100s brah.
You whalegum to join us in the sewer levels of arena.
Lol..I've been there. Very nice play on words, too, but I play freely among the cetaceans :D
"medetec;735674" wrote:
Sniping in and of itself isn't the problem, its a byproduct of a bad system. Imagine CG tried to have actual announced scheduled maintenance. Say, 1pm Pacific Time with a ETA for relaunch of 2-6 hours. People would lose their gorram minds.
There's no good reason to have a competitive system based around who can watch a clock better in an sRPG, and it causes a cascade of other problems for the game.
Medetec--the voice of reason.
"UltimateZeus;735686" wrote:
We're playing Star Wars here, not Clock Battles.
Yessir. Eight words to finely sum up the point.
"CaptainRex;736065" wrote:
I agree with all of you that current system is broken. But I have seen a lot of posts where people get very annoyed that some player would have the audacity to take the top spots from them right at payout.
And this was one of my concerns when bringing this discussion to the surface again. It's a slippery slope to assert that all who take issue with sniping are doing so from a position of entitlement. I hope I made it clear in my previous statements that while I understand many people have entitlement issues that are downright goofy, this is no part of the argument I and others here (thus far) are making.
"LastJedi;736145" wrote:
I think people getting **** off is part of the game plan. Opens up wallets. Just got sniped by someone that isn't even in my payout. From the 5 spot. Didn't really care, TBH. I been outspent. And I concede. Done playin p2"win." It's never over... next P2W toon is just around the corner.
Definitely true. I would never slam those who pay, but the p2p/p2w concept is strange to me from a user satisfaction standpoint. How much satisfaction can one really get from beating somebody who doesn't have the same tools at their disposal? Look at Sun Fac, for instance. A beefy, taunter who also dispels (not even considering the other great aspects of his kit). Using such a toon clears up an entire character space for another attacker, taunter, etc., thus giving the user a clear advantage. Of course this is the p2p model. But feeling like you have achieved something laudable when beating someone who was, by the game design, at an obvious disadvantage (e.g. compelled to use QGJ because they had no other dispelling option) is strange to me. The next p2p toon is just around the corner and the f2p often won't have gotten the previous one when the next arrives. This said, f2p have no grounds to complain, as we mooch of the payers. But I think it's a salient to keep in mind that f2p and p2p aren't really playing on the same terms.
Thanks for all your input, everybody. I sincerely appreciate it.
Capital Games Team
