Is it against the terms of service

I will say, I do not have any more details about the Fleet shard split than what was stated on the forum, but I thought they took players out of the shard and moved them elsewhere, not that they took the 1 shard and made 2.

So have we solved the problem yet?

Assuming the answer is yes, which I know it's not, way to go everyone! You solved the problem, now CG can go on not paying attention to it anyway!

I did Offer to change my payout if they let me in and also told them I would not hit their one person that was during my payout and they started hitting me even more.

If you have reached out and they have not let you in - maybe you could change your payout time or offer to take second or third place (initially). I’m not saying you should have to do that but if your goal is to be “in” then it could help. Likely they have quite a few at your payout already.

"Pulsipher;c-2087128" wrote:

"srwhitewvu;d-226674" wrote:
To have an arena shard and coordinate hitting non shard members down so that only shard members can reach top 5? These guys are instantaneously licking non shard members out just to be jerks. They are not letting people in their shard either. I feel like this is very much against the spirit of the game.

If you have reached out and they have not let you in - maybe you could change your payout time or offer to take second or third place (initially). I’m not saying you should have to do that but if your goal is to be “in” then it could help. Likely they have quite a few at your payout already.

"DarjeloSalas;c-2087148" wrote:

"Scuttlebutt;c-2087140" wrote:

"ZAP;c-2084621" wrote:

"srwhitewvu;d-226674" wrote:
To have an arena shard and coordinate hitting non shard members down so that only shard members can reach top 5? These guys are instantaneously licking non shard members out just to be jerks. They are not letting people in their shard either. I feel like this is very much against the spirit of the game.

Just curious, even if it was against TOS, which it isn’t, how would CG be able to prevent coordination outside the game?

Serious question

Shard shuffle to break up existing chats. Remove names and any other identifying marks from arena selection so people can’t find each other outside of the game. Prevent in game messages from being sent through arena so people can’t contact each other inside the game.

It’s early, but this post is my nomination for the least reasonable suggestion of April 2020. Hard to imagine it being beaten.

The existence of shard chats is a direct consequence of the arena payout structure. It is in everyone’s interests to get as high as they can within their payout slot. Knowing when others have their payout slot helps.

If you removed names and other identifying marks (presumably you mean guild name) how on earth would anyone know who they were battling?

Man, you’re so used to trolling these forums I doubt you even realize you’re doing it any more. Someone asked how CG could prevent coordination, so I stated how they could do it. I never said I did or didn’t want shard chats. This is just one way CG could prevent coordinate payouts.

Personally, I don’t see how it’s important to know who you are battling unless it’s to coordinate payouts.

"MaruMaru;c-2087086" wrote:

"Waqui;c-2087082" wrote:

"MaruMaru;c-2087063" wrote:

"Waqui;c-2087056" wrote:

"MaruMaru;c-2087047" wrote:

"Waqui;c-2087045" wrote:

"MaruMaru;c-2087037" wrote:

"Waqui;c-2087036" wrote:

"MaruMaru;c-2087026" wrote:

"Waqui;c-2086898" wrote:
@ZAP The problems of choosing which players to move, where to move them to and in which order to insert them are similar whether you move 50 players from one shard to another or you move half a shard.

These are not remotely the same problems. I have no idea how they divided the infamous fleet shard, from furthers reports from people on the divided shards...the problem didn't fade.

In terms of finding a fair solution it's not much different. If you can move a low number of players - or even just a single player - in a fair way you can also move more players in a fair way.

"MaruMaru;c-2087026" wrote:

Anyway, you can divide a shard in two by a superbly simple logic. Just make a snapshot of players at some random time, put the even numbers in one shard and odd in another. That way you maintain the status quo while reducing the extremity of high end players on each.

Agreed.

"MaruMaru;c-2087026" wrote:

What's the paradigm you would go with if you were to shuffle shards and maintain some resemblence of fairness?

I'm not saying there's a fair solution. I certainly don't have a fair solution myself. But there's a solution which is just as fair (or unfair) as what was done with that fleet shard.

"MaruMaru;c-2087026" wrote:

Whatever scheme you can think of, will it solve the problem of collusion that this whole discussion stems from or does it merely shuffle the colluding parties?

If a shard shuffle was to solve the "problem" of collusion (I personaly don't see shard chats as a problem) it would have to be repeated very often and you need to ensure that each shuffle will result in different top end players being put together in each shard. In my opinion it would be terrible.

If shard chats is not the problem, is there a problem that calls for any change in shard structure whether easy to implement or not?

In my opinion there isn't but that's not the point.

Ok, I don't follow the point then.

You'll see the point back where this part of the discussion started:

"Waqui;c-2086775" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2086743" wrote:

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2086741" wrote:

"ZAP;c-2086728" wrote:

"BlackIrish;c-2086727" wrote:
I'm against shard mafias. I don't think EA does enough or anything to discourage or stop them.

Do you have any suggestions on how CG could stop it?

Random shard shuffle monthly. But keep limit the movement so people are always in a shard with others who started within the same 60 days to prevent new players from getting matched in shards with 4yr old accounts would help.

If people start setting up monthly shard chats then do the shuffle weekly. It can be a auto run job on their servers and takes 0 effort once set up.

how do you handle the regrouping? what order are they placed in?

CG could do it in a similar way as when they split up that one fleet shard. If they found a fair way to do it back then, they can also find a way to shuffle shards.

My response to Kyno's question. For some reason it spawn several responses.

Ok, I tried to address that in my first response to you. Whatever method they used for shard split, it's not the same with shard shuffling. Shard breaking doesn't introduce anyone new into the equation.

With regards to fairness the issues with shard shuffling are the exact same as with breaking up that fleet shard.

Doesn't introduce anyone new into the equation? How so? The players that were removed from that fleet shard were introduced into other fleet shards (at least that's how I understood what Kyno wrote)

"MaruMaru;c-2087063" wrote:

All the shard breaking experience shows is that it's technically possible to move someone from a shard, just like it's technically possible to multiply the stats of a toon by 10.

It also shows that CG found a solution for moving people between shards which in their opinion had an acceptable level of fairness.

"MaruMaru;c-2087063" wrote:

Shard shuffling would be more similar to matchmaking which we know has always been a glorious problem.

Matchmaking is completely different from shard shuffling. Matchmaking doesn't affect your current rank and doesn't affect which payouts your competitors have. Shard shuffling may.

As far as I understood about that particular fleet shard, it was just broken in two.

Since every shard in existence are segmented by the dates they are launched, that doesn't give a paradigm to work with. So which shard you should go to has to be determined by a process similar to matchmaking. Account dates? GP? Something. Obviously that something can not be "just randomly".

The something would be what it is today... based on when you started the game.

They can make hard barriers every 3 months and prevent people from crossing over so players are prevented from being in a shard that has people who started 6 months before or after they did.

As far as shuffling if there are 10 shards in that 3 month period everyone gets placed in a random shard within the 10 based on their position in their current shard.

So if I'm first place in shard 2 of 10 within the 3 month window I get put in the 1st place of shard 3 of 10. The guy in second place goes to shard 4 of 10. The guy in 3rd place goes to shard 5 of 10... but all within the 3 month "when did you start playing" window to keep arenas balanced based on exactly how they are set up now.

I make more complicated algorithms everyday for my work...a shard split algorithm isnt that hard to write... maybe they just need some competent people or maybe they just dont care that their most competitive mode is really a collusion racket of friends manipulating their system to get extra Crystal's by coordinating their payouts so they all get 1st place. Maybe if CG thought of the collusion as stealing from them they would address it.

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087315" wrote:
I make more complicated algorithms everyday for my work...a shard split algorithm isnt that hard to write... maybe they just need some competent people or maybe they just dont care that their most competitive mode is really a collusion racket of friends manipulating their system to get extra Crystal's by coordinating their payouts so they all get 1st place. Maybe if CG thought of the collusion as stealing from them they would address it.

maybe they understand that a solution like this is a bad idea because it is not fair to the entire player base and could do more harm than good to the stability of the game.

just moving people around would be very detrimental to the F2P base. I'm sure you can see this, and adding any element to keep that "fair" to them is much more complicated than just shifting players.

"Kyno;c-2087321" wrote:

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087315" wrote:
I make more complicated algorithms everyday for my work...a shard split algorithm isnt that hard to write... maybe they just need some competent people or maybe they just dont care that their most competitive mode is really a collusion racket of friends manipulating their system to get extra Crystal's by coordinating their payouts so they all get 1st place. Maybe if CG thought of the collusion as stealing from them they would address it.

maybe they understand that a solution like this is a bad idea because it is not fair to the entire player base and could do more harm than good to the stability of the game.

just moving people around would be very detrimental to the F2P base. I'm sure you can see this, and adding any element to keep that "fair" to them is much more complicated than just shifting players.

How is it not fair, other than because you say so. How is this detrimental to f2p?

The shards would be based on when you started playing. That's how they were built years ago so reorganizing them based on when you started playing is exactly as fair as it is now.

Currently shards are based on when you started playing.

Proposed shards being shuffled but keeping players within a couple months base of when they started playing is essentially the same exact thing but it prevents shard chats from easily forming. If anything it requires more work for people to constantly locate their shard members and set up a colluding ring before the next shuffle so it makes it harder for people to cheat the system.

Unless your saying that its not fair to take away people's ability to collude for top spots because then those same people would just quit the game and that's bad for the game because less players..... But some would counter argue that those people quitting because they can no longer collude and lock others out of top spots that would be good for the game because it removed the collusion aspect of arena.
Therefore it would actually improve the health of the game.

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087324" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2087321" wrote:

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087315" wrote:
I make more complicated algorithms everyday for my work...a shard split algorithm isnt that hard to write... maybe they just need some competent people or maybe they just dont care that their most competitive mode is really a collusion racket of friends manipulating their system to get extra Crystal's by coordinating their payouts so they all get 1st place. Maybe if CG thought of the collusion as stealing from them they would address it.

maybe they understand that a solution like this is a bad idea because it is not fair to the entire player base and could do more harm than good to the stability of the game.

just moving people around would be very detrimental to the F2P base. I'm sure you can see this, and adding any element to keep that "fair" to them is much more complicated than just shifting players.

How is it not fair, other than because you say so. How is this detrimental to f2p?

The shards would be based on when you started playing. That's how they were built years ago so reorganizing them based on when you started playing is exactly as fair as it is now.

Currently shards are based on when you started playing.

Proposed shards being shuffled but keeping players within a couple months base of when they started playing is essentially the same exact thing but it prevents shard chats from easily forming. If anything it requires more work for people to constantly locate their shard members and set up a colluding ring before the next shuffle so it makes it harder for people to cheat the system.

Unless your saying that its not fair to take away people's ability to collude for top spots because then those same people would just quit the game and that's bad for the game because less players..... But some would counter argue that those people quitting because they can no longer collude and lock others out of top spots that would be good for the game because it removed the collusion aspect of arena.
Therefore it would actually improve the health of the game.

correct, they are based on that. Do you think all shards are the same? shards within the same month all have the same level of difficulty?

I dont think they do. There are shards with more or less players that have focused on mods, or $$ in this game. each shard even in close range to each other are unique.

it has nothing to do with collusion. it has to do with the fact that people have grown into their shard, this is especially true for old shards that were around before a lot of our current events. each player was shaped by arena as that was one of the few focal points in the game.

taking a player that can do well in one shard and throwing them into another doesn't mean they will do well there. much like meta shifts disturb the balance. if this was the way it was from the beginning then players would have developed differently, to make this change now would cause an upheaval to a main system of the game. F2P players have a harder time dealing with major shifts and changes, which is why i bring them up but it would have a similar effect on $$ players too. they have invested a certain amount that gets them to the position they want to be in. this change could devalue that, by changing their situation to now not allow them to place where they want.

the situation is different then just how the shards were built in the first place due to this growth and settling that has happened on each shard over time.

this is also one of those problems that has a massive effect on everyone, but is "fixing" (which it may not, because we all know how to find each other) a problem for "few". that is where the fairness really derives its importance.

to have a broader effectiveness on the fix, information would have to be blocked out, again adding to the headship felt by the players who can now not easily identify their targets, making the climb more difficult.

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087324" wrote:

"Kyno;c-2087321" wrote:

"BobcatSkywalker;c-2087315" wrote:
I make more complicated algorithms everyday for my work...a shard split algorithm isnt that hard to write... maybe they just need some competent people or maybe they just dont care that their most competitive mode is really a collusion racket of friends manipulating their system to get extra Crystal's by coordinating their payouts so they all get 1st place. Maybe if CG thought of the collusion as stealing from them they would address it.

maybe they understand that a solution like this is a bad idea because it is not fair to the entire player base and could do more harm than good to the stability of the game.

just moving people around would be very detrimental to the F2P base. I'm sure you can see this, and adding any element to keep that "fair" to them is much more complicated than just shifting players.

How is it not fair, other than because you say so. .

Counterpoint - How is it fair, other than because you say so?