Shard Mafias

Coordinated payout aren't against the ToS nor is using third party apps to communicate (as far as I know).
"Shard mafias" have been debated a lot and I very much doubt anything can be done other than what you can do for yourself. Reach out to them and try and establish other players' payout times and see if you can reach an agreement with them. A higher risk alternative is to make a pest of yourself but these group may have 25 plus people in them so the numbers are stacked against you.
Sorry but there really isn't much more you can do.

Yes, unfortunately I believe CG’s opinion on this is “git gud.” A lot of mobile games do let you change servers, but I don’t see how this one would be able to implement it fairly.

If OP could establish some other players' pay out times then they could re-set theirs to a less congested time.

"AlexanderG;c-2187610" wrote:
If OP could establish some other players' pay out times then they could re-set theirs to a less congested time.

This could definitely work but I'd also recommend trying to contact someone at the top and get Involved in the discord chat. You'll then be able to see when everyone's payout is, change yours if needed, avoid hitting others leading up to their payout and with your payout known then there is less chance of you being sniped

Shard mafias can be a nice thing, organizing payouts and letting players maximize profit by not doing refreshes. But, When they attack people outside mafia just because.... it's bad.

To solve this is pretty easy.....People have to choose for one payout time......and then based on the payout time there is a daily rota in the shards. That means every day you've a new arena. Problem is that CG is too dump to implement this

A more easy solution that in my opinion would lessen the issue is that your payout is based on your highest achieved rank over the last 24 hours. Not your rank at one certain time.

If this was implemented then the mafia could still help each other out. But outsiders or dare I say Solo PvP players wouldn’t have to deal with situations where a group knows your payout and actively block your progress at that time... such behavior is an abuse of the systems in place in my opinion. I have no joke been locked out of playing in arena for 30 mins leading up to my payout... not by people progressing but just by engaging and then timing out the arena battle.

I acknowledge that this is an issue only for some of us with very hostile shard mofias but where they are it makes arena a very toxic game mode. And I don’t think it needs to be that way...

No this is not against the ToS.

Unfortunately, you cannot change shards.

"Nonentity21;c-2187609" wrote:
Yes, unfortunately I believe CG’s opinion on this is “git gud.” A lot of mobile games do let you change servers, but I don’t see how this one would be able to implement it fairly.

Honestly, I have never seen a game that would let you change shards. Most groupings are to have people play together who started at the same time. Any development game in this style never lets you move due to the advantage you could have.

The few times I have heard of this, it has been a one time thing to move people out of a shard that was established during BETA, because some players had more time in game due to being there when the game was in a closed system.

@Kyno what about changing the system to being based on highest rank achieved over a 24 hour window. While this would increase top tier payouts, it wouldn’t be a huge increase and would likely only affect those in the top 20 to 50.