Shard Chats = cheating

"Kai_Mulai;c-1513776" wrote:

"Robotolove;c-1512572" wrote:
It turns a PVP match into PVP+P+P+P match. In a free for all competition teaming up defeats the purpose.

As I understand it, shard chats can be used for 2 purposes. The first is allowing more people to rank higher. If most or all of the people at the top have a different payout time, they can all get better rewards. That’s cooperation to improve things for everyone, and I’d call it a good thing.

The other purpose is exclusion of anyone not in the shard chat. It seems like that’s the kind of thing you don’t like and I’d agree that it’s not helpful. However, it’s still going to happen in certain arena shards. So if yours is one of them, you can break it up by beating the other teams so you do well at your payout time. And if you keep doing well, you’ll probably be invited to join the shard chat yourself!

To my experience members of shard chats only punish players who regularly mess with their payouts. Maybe OP was such a guy?

"Robotolove;c-1514965" wrote:
I don't frequent the forums much and I was wondering if this subject has been brought to the attention of the devs?

This topic is as old as the game and there were already people being banned from the forums for calling shard chats "cheating". Just FYI.

The "cheat" is when a group of shard chat people lock out other people not in the chat, because they compete with a subset of the shard chat groups payouts. Like how @ewqewqc says his "payout time" is locked because they already have 10 in that payout time... meaning they won't accept new people into the shard chat that share that payout time and actively punish outsiders that try to compete for that payout time, by using members of the shard chat that have different payout times.

The blocking due to a perceived fullness of that payout time, and more specifically the italized statement above, is where the annoyance over "cheating" comes from... imo. People with the same payout times should just compete with each other, without interference from other people in different payout times.

The other "etiquette" rules may be fine (again imo) to "enforce", except when members of the Shard Chat violate those rules themselves.
Like when they attack outside their payout times to maintain a lower level ranking, presumably to avoid having to climb like the rest of us, then it is just hypocritical to expect outsiders to behave one way while Shard Chat people get to behave differently.

@rawman Interesting. But I guess it makes sense this issue would be as old as the game itself.

Two Words!!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/242838511927951362/434516903873085440/image.jpg

Still waiting to hear from the devs how a bunch of people fight locking anyone outside their shard chat is ok.

You should be fighting for best rank at payout time.

I am sure they would argue many many players, if they "nerf" this too!

Shard chats were originally created for a very good purpose. It’s s.t,u.p.i,d (censorship) to fight people that don’t share your payout. If someone has a payout an hour before me, I can just wait till afterwards to move up. This means more people get rewards, not fewer. Pretty much everyone gets their turn at the top. That part I’ve never heard anyone complain about because, it’s only helping people.

That’s the basic function of all shard chats. All the complaints I see come from the level of control the chat has over the arena. A side effect of having a group of people working together towards a common goal is they actually work together. If you have someone new attack a fellow member of your chat, you’re going to want to help. The idea being if you were in a similar situation, you’d want help.

That will vary wildly between shard chats. You can have laze faire chats that are mostly free-for-all, just with avoiding attacking each other. Some chats have a ‘hit list’ of trouble makes. Other ones are so controlled that people keep an eye on outsiders and target them as need be.

My regular arena is highly controlled. Farferi mention being knocked back to 12, but I remember at one point members of my chat had moved someone from a top 5 spot to the 20s without giving them a chance to lock themselves. Of course, that particular player attacked people all the time, well outside of their payout, just to do it. They weren’t just trying to rank, they wanted to mess with people for no good reason.

My fleet arena has a hit list, but mostly just a non-aggression chat. And why are most people on the hit list? They attack people outside of their payout time. You might be noticing a theme here. Most shard chats I know of don’t normally target someone, unless they go out of their way to make trouble.

Now it is true that some people want to get into a chat but are denied. This could come from two reasons. The first reason is if the payout time is very crowded. While coordination is all well and good, there does come a certain point where it’s not practical. Odds are if your arena has 5 or more people in the same payout, they’re not going to be able to include anyone else, since they have to avoid each other and the people with payout after them.

The second reason is how well someone can maintain their rank. I see this a lot. Someone will make it in the top 10 once and immediately ask to be on a rotating payout with other people. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s just not going to happen. All the shard chats I know about are concerned with top 10, but usually only top 5. If you can’t make it up there, there’s no point in having you in the chat. The same is true if you can’t keep making it up there. I don’t say that to sound cold, but the whole point of people working together during the same payout is consistency.

To use an example, take my fleet arena. There are four of us with the same payout. We rotate through all four ranks every day, so we all get a chance at #1. For the most part, we’re all there every day, but if one of us doesn’t make it, we let the others know and they can take a higher spot (if applicable). On the whole, however, we know that if we’re on #3 that day, we’re going to be going to #3.

On the other end of the spectrum, take my regular arena. There are four of us again, but the situation is a bit different. I’ve been getting #1 there since more or less late January 2016 (unless I got sniped). The other three only made it to the top in the last 6 or 7 months. Considering I’ve been there so much longer and they are not consistent in making it up, I get #1 and they work out #2 - #4. The simple fact is they don’t always make it up. Over the last couple months, one has consistently made it up, though there was a time when it was one of the others. Even then, the one that does make it up doesn’t go for the #2 spot. It’s possible they might not be able to beat everyone.

That right there is why most shard chats screen people before letting them in. The reality is most people will burn out pretty quickly. One of the four in my regular arena isn’t even in the top 50 right now, and the payout is about an hour and a half away. It’s certainly possible to make it, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

That doesn’t even consider the longevity of meta change. Right now, the meta is about as FTP friendly as it has ever been, which means a lot of people are making it in to the top 50 almost by luck. I’ll see a new username and check their roster to see the only characters they’ve really geared are for their Palpatine team. When the meta inevitably shifts, they’re going to drop like rocks because they won’t be able to adapt. And it’s not the first time. The Nightsisters did the same thing. Some players were getting by with criminally under-geared teams because of a gimmick. And as soon as the NS stopped being arena viable at the top, they all vanished.

You don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it is. Shard chats exist and the Devs won’t do a thing about it. Why? Because there’s no ‘solution’ that isn’t more trouble than it’s worth. Just look at the fleet arena shard they’re breaking up. I know people in that shard, and the Devs knew about it from the beginning. How long have ships been in-game? It’s taken them this long to do something about such a grossly unfair shard, and that’s just a single shard. Does anyone honestly think they’re going to even consider the logistical nightmare it would be to scramble every shard, both regular and fleet?

And then what about the complaints that will come when players that started a month ago are thrown into a shard with people playing since the beginning? I often give advice on another forum to people just starting out and they make it into the top 100 with G7 Phoenix teams. Those people should never be put up against people with G12 Zeta teams.

You could try to keep players with others that started around the same time, but once you make that pool small enough, you’re just going to end up with new shard chats. And there’s no way the Devs could shuffle it every couple days. That’s just insane. Again, look at how long it took to fix a single shard.

But there is a solution, if you really wanted it. If you want to eliminate the need for shard chats, then get rid of payout times. Have it so you get the highest rank you achieve in a single day is the reward you get. That way there’s no need for locking anyone out. As long as you make it to #1 once, you get #1.

But that is never going to happen because as generous as this game is with Crystals, that would be giving away too much for CG. I get #1 in my regular arena and a top 4 spot in my fleet arena every day. That’s 800-900 Crystals a day. I don’t spend money anymore. I was around a low dolphin for a while, but when they stopped the daily Crystal booster, I stopped spending. Why should I? I get about $7 worth of Crystals every day. That’s approximately $40 - $50 a week in Crystals (depending on your conversion rate) that I definitely couldn’t afford to spend otherwise. If they started letting anyone who makes it to the top do that, they would lose a lot of money.

So you’ll never get a viable solution because it would lose them money, and they won’t fix what exists now because it’s just not cost effective to do so. Apart from the fact that the people who do spend a bunch of money are able to take advantage of the system and wouldn’t want it to change.

The truth with farferi is he was invited into chat when he was getting smashed out of top 5 easy but because we didnt want to bully and like to help everyone if we can even though it was a full PO slot.

We was extremly rude and selfish even bumping his PO mates because they were infront of him 45 mins before payout without asking or waiting for them to move not to mention he had simple routes around that would not have cost him any extra moves.

Further more he would swear, call others names, lie, hit and bump for several weeks as if he was the the only person in the arena.

After many weeks of putting up with behaviour we removed him from chat and treate him as the rude, selfish idiot he is.

Message to Farfei:

Wake up you to the fact you were an asshole and appologise.
Its a fun game and its just a fun daily game feature to bump you out of top 5 and sometimes top 10 in 1-2mins because you over stepped with your disgusting beviour for which you need to be held accountable.
ciao

Depends on what the group actually does. Just informing others about payout times and avoiding the guys in your payout slot/the ones immediately after your payout is ok. If the group is open to new members it is ok. If the group collectively target other players to teach them how to behave it is not ok.

There is easy solution to this problem but they will never resort to it because it would decrease their income and I cant blame them for that. You get rewards for highest place you achieved that day. This way there is no need for shard chats there is no need to fight over 1st place at estabilished hour also would solve problem of inconvinient payout times. BUT it would drastically increase amount of crystals that playerS (not a single one ) can get daily therefore someone who is not a whale but would still buy crystals from time to time wouldnt spend because he can get those crystals without paying, and there is no other way of solving this. But lets be real now, can you really compete with krakens and whales in your shard even without shard chats

"Sarith_LeKit;c-1555559" wrote:
There is easy solution to this problem but they will never resort to it because it would decrease their income and I cant blame them for that. You get rewards for highest place you achieved that day. This way there is no need for shard chats there is no need to fight over 1st place at estabilished hour also would solve problem of inconvinient payout times. BUT it would drastically increase amount of crystals that playerS (not a single one ) can get daily therefore someone who is not a whale but would still buy crystals from time to time wouldnt spend because he can get those crystals without paying, and there is no other way of solving this. But lets be real now, can you really compete with krakens and whales in your shard even without shard chats

People still would trample over each other to achieve this "highest rank per day". Maybe on average people had a higher rank for payout but other than that nothing changed.