I had posted some of this in another reply but I thought it was worth its own discussion.After spending over a month and hours a day of knocking my head against the HT wall as a new player (!Attention developers!), I have to say that HT along with the lopsided shard I'm in is just a motivation/fun killer, a.k.a motivation/fun suck. 8 out of 11 fleet squads ahead of me in fleet arena have HT and have anywhere from 100k to 600k GP more than me. They are mostly level 85 and I just hit 82. And it's been that uneven since level 60. It doesn't sound like much but it's months of farming difference for F2P. Not to mention the ever growing earnings difference in crystals since teams with HT are just about always ahead of me. You can't even start to farm Bossk until level 85 aside from the store and all I've been doing from the start is concentrating on farming ships and pilots for power. Tie Advanced is about the only option but that's out of reach for me too at this point. This feels like such a waste of time and it's a total bummer!Let's game this out from a F2P perspective. Farming HT and Bossk to a competitive level in my shard is 1-2 mos away for me to reach level 85 and another 2 mos to 7 star Bossk. And by that time the other teams will all have Hans Millenium Falcon which you can't get without HT and Bossk!!! How the "wack" am I this far behind in a relatively new shard? Hello developers? I'd be able to deal with the bad shard if it wasn't for the additionally lopsided HT. Bad shard and crappy meta ship design!! Ally Code: 887-344-419

Update: After concentrating solely on fleet for my entire time playing this game, I was able to farm BH ships and get HMF (broke down and bought one BH ship pack). I now split first place with my fellow top five HMF squads. Funny thing is with all the HMFs the main differentiation is still who has the biggest HT. So I guess this will last until Nute's capital ship comes and the bugs/HT take over!! Hopefully it lasts a little longer so I can finally get a little payout and go after a decent arena squad.

"Dk_rek;c-1871071" wrote:"f82bd;c-1869676" wrote:Update: After concentrating solely on fleet for my entire time playing this game, I was able to farm BH ships and get HMF (broke down and bought one BH ship pack). I now split first place with my fellow top five HMF squads. Funny thing is with all the HMFs the main differentiation is still who has the biggest HT. So I guess this will last until Nute's capital ship comes and the bugs/HT take over!! Hopefully it lasts a little longer so I can finally get a little payout and go after a decent arena squad.Nothing is going to take over.... My Favorite part of this game is dead... They don't care, they have ignored ship guys for years..... Really? Ships 2.0, new ships and among them a legendary non-capital ship, adding crystals to rewards, including ships in (some) GAs, galactic runs (or whatever the EP / Ebon event was called).... It looks to me, that there's plenty of things going on. You may not like, what they do, but ships are in no way ignored.

It is how it is. Everyone has it same. F2P players need to farm for a long time. P2W players will just buy enough crystals to speed it up significantly. It took me about 4 months to get Bossk 7* G12 and Hound Tooth 7* and Millennium Falcon was released almost immediately after that. You are F2P. Don't expect to beat P2P players on top places in your shard. If you don't accept that, you better stop playing any competitive game offering micro transactions.

Good point but I wonder if it's just a p2p issue. It seems it's also shard creation issue. I'm about 500k GP and there someone with 1100k GP in the same shard. That's pretty goofy.

Shards are created as the previous one fills and are made of groups of people who open that game mode at the same time. I believe fleets are 5k and arena is 20k players.The system works very well for arena because people are generally opening that game mode up early on in the development, fleet is a little different. There are times when players return to the game and unlock ships and can be placed in a young shard, and other ways that the mix will seem odd. It will all even out as time goes on, but yes anyone who is $$ will gain/keep a time advantage over others.

Houndstooth and Uneven Fleet Shard Sucks

F82bd
6 years ago
Update: After concentrating solely on fleet for my entire time playing this game, I was able to farm BH ships and get HMF (broke down and bought one BH ship pack). I now split first place with my fellow top five HMF squads. Funny thing is with all the HMFs the main differentiation is still who has the biggest HT. So I guess this will last until Nute's capital ship comes and the bugs/HT take over!! Hopefully it lasts a little longer so I can finally get a little payout and go after a decent arena squad.
Waquira
6 years ago
"Dk_rek;c-1871071" wrote:
"f82bd;c-1869676" wrote:
Update: After concentrating solely on fleet for my entire time playing this game, I was able to farm BH ships and get HMF (broke down and bought one BH ship pack). I now split first place with my fellow top five HMF squads. Funny thing is with all the HMFs the main differentiation is still who has the biggest HT. So I guess this will last until Nute's capital ship comes and the bugs/HT take over!! Hopefully it lasts a little longer so I can finally get a little payout and go after a decent arena squad.

Nothing is going to take over.... My Favorite part of this game is dead... They don't care, they have ignored ship guys for years.....

Really? Ships 2.0, new ships and among them a legendary non-capital ship, adding crystals to rewards, including ships in (some) GAs, galactic runs (or whatever the EP / Ebon event was called).... It looks to me, that there's plenty of things going on. You may not like, what they do, but ships are in no way ignored.
Ladicek82
6 years ago
It is how it is. Everyone has it same. F2P players need to farm for a long time. P2W players will just buy enough crystals to speed it up significantly. It took me about 4 months to get Bossk 7* G12 and Hound Tooth 7* and Millennium Falcon was released almost immediately after that.

You are F2P. Don't expect to beat P2P players on top places in your shard. If you don't accept that, you better stop playing any competitive game offering micro transactions.
F82bd
6 years ago
Good point but I wonder if it's just a p2p issue. It seems it's also shard creation issue. I'm about 500k GP and there someone with 1100k GP in the same shard. That's pretty goofy.
NyKynoe
6 years ago
Shards are created as the previous one fills and are made of groups of people who open that game mode at the same time. I believe fleets are 5k and arena is 20k players.

The system works very well for arena because people are generally opening that game mode up early on in the development, fleet is a little different. There are times when players return to the game and unlock ships and can be placed in a young shard, and other ways that the mix will seem odd. It will all even out as time goes on, but yes anyone who is $$ will gain/keep a time advantage over others.
Ladicek82
6 years ago
"f82bd;c-1792251" wrote:
Good point but I wonder if it's just a p2p issue. It seems it's also shard creation issue. I'm about 500k GP and there someone with 1100k GP in the same shard. That's pretty goofy.

That does not surprise me. I'm 1.8M, I'm occasionally buying some crystals so I'm not F2P, still my Arena shard contains several 4-5M players. Since there is nothing like F2P shard (because anyone can anytime change from F2P to P2P) there can always be massive difference among players in the same shard.
Drazhar91
6 years ago
Welcome to the pay to win wall of your shard. There will always be one. Since they started releasing characters in 238388 different ways, there has been a lot of complaint by whales that couldn't manage to win against f2ps even after spending, because money can buy valuable resources but nothing can buy a good brain, a good videogaming instinct and a favorable RNG with mods. They had to create such walls, because the spenders must be as sure as they possibly can be to win after spending.
F82bd
6 years ago
"Kyno;c-1792269" wrote:
Shards are created as the previous one fills and are made of groups of people who open that game mode at the same time. I believe fleets are 5k and arena is 20k players.

The system works very well for arena because people are generally opening that game mode up early on in the development, fleet is a little different. There are times when players return to the game and unlock ships and can be placed in a young shard, and other ways that the mix will seem odd. It will all even out as time goes on, but yes anyone who is $$ will gain/keep a time advantage over others.

I appreciate the feedback Kyno. I hope you appreciate mine as a new player. I understand this is why this happens but it doesn't explain away the result and frustration that's caused by this situation which is why I posted in the feedback section. It sounds like the fleet shard issue is unavoidable so the ship situation should be addressed. If it effects the shard so dramatically so early, it should be made more available somehow or something that counters it more effectively should be made more available earlier. I'm still waiting for more Tie Advanced drops ;-)
Darth_DeVito
6 years ago
It's precisely because your fleet shard is new. P2Ps can unlock content like Bossk and HT a lot sooner via character bundles and data packs, or through crystal purchases from shipments. That's pretty much the business model behind the game. Pay to have an advantage for a little while, until diligently farming F2Ps have caught up with you.

And they always do :) You can only put so much gear and mods on pilots. At some point, all HTs and all Millennium Falcons are equally matched, no matter if F2P or P2P. All you can do is work towards this point.
Waquira
6 years ago
The thing about fleet arena is, that you will catch up eventually. It's easier in fleet arena, since METAs change less frequently than in squad arena.