The only thing worse than the current system is every other alternative system people propose.
So, this would never get implemented, but ...
One idea I found cool for super-tough shards was this: if you take first place at your payout, you're banned from any battles for either 48 or 72 hours (or, you can battle, but your rank is registered as #0 and they don't count for standing and you can only battle the top 3 players)
During those 48 or 72 hours, you're just not a part of the shard, you can't attack anyone, nothing, BUT you get 1st place rewards at the next 2 (or 3, if 72 hours) payouts automatically. After the prescribed time, 1 second after your payout, you sub in at the #1 slot and people have to take you out to move into #1, just as they would have had to do 2-3 days ago. This will take a bunch of people out of the rotation periodically, and if there are jerkdorks, the rest of the shard gets the benefit of having them gone for a bit.
Since theoretically multiple people could take #1 rewards in the same time zone, it would marginally boost the total rewards given out, but not that much, since if you can take #1 on the day your fiercest competition is gone, you could take #2 or #3 when they're there. So only an extra +100 - 200 crystals per day MAX for any one time zone, split among several people (including the person who finishes 10 instead of 11th, 20th instead of 21st and 50th instead of 51st). The total payout is going to be a lot less than 100-200 crystals per time zone, however, so less than 2k extra crystals per day spread out over a bunch of people, who don't get more than 25 more crystals individually than they would have otherwise.
But the cool thing would be that it would break up the bands of bullies AND make the legendary shards less brutal (arguably, it would be more fair to that shard, since any of the top 50-100 on that shard could take #1 on any other shard any time they wanted) while only very marginally increasing payouts for low or lower-end shards like mine. (Indeed it wouldn't affect me at all, since I take #1 every day and have adjusted my payout time not to conflict with others on my shard).
Again, I doubt it would ever be implemented, but it's the most elegant solution I can think of to that kind of mess.
ETA: Sorry, I read part of this chat a long time ago, then just read a few things today. For some reason I thought we were talking about Fleet shards, but someone above just mentioned a "Revan team". I do NOT finish #1 every day in squad arena. I normally finish in the low 40s there. If they implemented this system there, it would absolutely benefit me to the toon of 10-20 spots, maybe even enough to finish top 20 once in a while.
Capital Games Team
