Something has to be done about the Arena lockout (suggestions welcome)

"Calvin;223831" wrote:
The fights are not coming down to who has the better battle strategy or team composition, instead it is coming down to manipulation of the timer near payout. Engaging someone in a battle at the six minute mark before payout, kill off 4 of their toons and leave the last one standing for 3 or 4 mins, then Kill the last one in the last few seconds of the battle. If it's timed right it prevents anyone from engaging you in battle and you secure your spot.

This isn't the type of competitive battling that is indicative of the gamers actual strategy.

All it is

I would prefer an arena where the fights are the challenge, not clock management.

I disagree

It is good as it is now dont reduce payout
It would move payout battles to reset time at midnight so better would be only opportunity to defend your spot instead of al

But then playing time should be reduced to 2:40 for each player to make their moves

"Calvin;223831" wrote:
Defensive AI isn't smart enough to win battles. Most people are running fairly similar teams in the top pay out brackets. The fights are not coming down to who has the better battle strategy or team composition, instead it is coming down to manipulation of the timer near payout. Engaging someone in a battle at the six minute mark before payout, kill off 4 of their toons and leave the last one standing for 3 or 4 mins, then Kill the last one in the last few seconds of the battle. If it's timed right it prevents anyone from engaging you in battle and you secure your spot.
This isn't the type of competitive battling that is indicative of the gamers actual strategy.
http://venturebeat.com/2016/03/08/engagement-is-the-new-arpdau-and-dau/
The comments on engagement are spot on. The people I have seen comment on arena issues tend not to be asking for free rewards, instead they are asking for a focus on gamer experience. Unfortunately gamer experience is often at ends with bottom lines.
I would like to see something that turns away from the area timing schedule, something that maybe rewards people for holding a position, or for how many battles they won, how far they climbed up the ladder, etc.

This is exactly right. For anyone competing in the top ten, it is not about game or battle strategy, but more about trying to guess when someone else is fighting. It is about time management and knowing when to refresh.

@Mofojokers1992 started a discussion on this yesterday here

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/21918/2-small-life-changes-an-end-to-snipers-and-player-locking/p1

"LordStyling;223581" wrote:
i'm ok with it

i'd love to know WHEN i'm getting attacked tho and the ones getting attacked (like a red dot or something)

or be able to see the live attack of who's attacking me

I like the idea of showing who is busy. I wasted a refresh yesterday trying to grab the #2 spot from #6, to find that all the top 5 spots were already engaged and I had no one to fight. If I could have seen that I didn't have any available fights, wouldn't have bothered.

"Pyramidshawn;22003" wrote:
As we all know, players like to lock down the top spots by remaining in combat perpetually until payout time. This is becoming more prevalent as the level of competition catches up and there are tens or people vying for those spots at the same time.

My idea is both
A- Reward the player for the highest rank they achieved throughout the day and
B- Drastically reduce the payout so it doesn't hurt EA/CG in the long run and people continue to purchase crystals etc.

Whether you agree with me or not, I think most people who are in this situation of spamming combat and timing refreshes would like a resolution to this problem.

I agree with your first point. It's rather annoying to have to devote 1-2 hours a day before payout to take a top rank. Especially now that with the payout moving back an hour I don't even get a chance to compete. There are tons of people who don't even have a chance simply due to personal schedules. Making the payout to include best rank for the day I think would be best and most fair for the vast majority.

I'm thinking that they could do two things in regards to the payout. Give a smaller shard payout based off of the best rank you achieved that day. As well as have a lager payout for what rank you hold by payout time. If they did the amounts right then the top spot would still get the amount they are getting now. Here is my suggested new payout system.

SHARDS PAYOUT

Rank - Current - Daily Best - Updated Final Rank Payout
1 ---- 500 ---- 150 ---- 350
2 ---- 450 ---- 140 ---- 310
3 ---- 400 ---- 130 ---- 270
4 ---- 350 ---- 120 ---- 230
5 ---- 300 ---- 110 ---- 190
10 ---- 250 ---- 100 ---- 150
20 ---- 200 ---- 75 ---- 125
50 ---- 150 ---- 50 ---- 100
100 ----100 ---- 25 ---- 75
200 ---- 75 ---- 20 ---- 55
500 ---- 60 ---- 15 ---- 45
1000 --- 50 ---- 10 ---- 40
2500 --- 40 ---- 5 ---- 35

Examples:
1. For the first two examples lets say this person works evenings and can only plays in the morning and spend one refresh. If they start in top 50 and get to first place (locks in 150 shards) but then got knocked back to top 50 (100 more) by payout time 10 hours later. They would end up getting 250 shards. 100 more shards than they currently are getting.

2. Starts in top 100 and works down to top 20 (75 shards) and gets knocked to top 100 (75) by payout. They would get a total of 150 shards. 50 more than before.

3. Person plays an hour or two before payout time and fights to block and take first. They took first (150 Shards) end up getting sniped to 4th (230) by payout. They would get 380 shards. 30 more than before but still 120 less than first place.

Basically, players who do do all 5-10 battles (1-2 hours) will get a minor reward for taking the time to get the best rank their team can achieve. Naturally, players who have good enough teams to take top ranks will result in a slightly larger reward that those who's "best rank of the day" is not in top ranks.
There are two other very important thing to point out by addressing the payout this way. First is, anyone who holds their best rank will not see a decrease in their rewards. Secondly, If all top 5 players took first at some point, the final payout for each rank wouldn't actually change much. They would be battle for 40 shard upgrade between the ranks instead of the current 50.

This suggestion is (imo) only valid if they increase AI. Because of the way AI works now, that would basically mean everyone can be #1 at a certain point during the day. What you are basically saying is:
Don't work with payout times. We can't all be number 1 :)

I can already tell you this is never going to happen. Even if you cut rewards in half, at least 50-100 persons will be #1 during the day.

Reposting my answer to the same question in poll form.

I don't get into the politics and mechanics of rankings in arena, though I probably should. It kind of reminds me of the "tactics" used in soccer. I find the shenanigans that goes on with people finding their arena mates and colluding with them on rankings to be a bit distasteful, cheating actually. The locking out and sniping and other tactics also to be cheating. Some people seem to base their entire game play around gaming the system on arena rankings. . I think EA should start handing out bans to people that manipulate the game to gain free crystals.

"Pyramidshawn;22003" wrote:
As we all know, players like to lock down the top spots by remaining in combat perpetually until payout time. This is becoming more prevalent as the level of competition catches up and there are tens or people vying for those spots at the same time.

My idea is both
A- Reward the player for the highest rank they achieved throughout the day and
B- Drastically reduce the payout so it doesn't hurt EA/CG in the long run and people continue to purchase crystals etc.

Whether you agree with me or not, I think most people who are in this situation of spamming combat and timing refreshes would like a resolution to this problem.

+1 - it would help ppl, who have to work at or close to the payout-time ...

why not just take the top 10 players every night and put them into a draft as to who gets what for rewards.

Or have a rotating time at which payouts are calculated throughout the day,

Say 5 different times that payouts happen, and they vary randomly daily.