This is the real meta, and it needs a nerf

"Waqui;1007821" wrote:
Cooperation is part of the game — in guilds as well as in arenas.

WAI

I highly doubt that ea/cg intended this kind of behaviour. I mean, come on haha

Maybe. You can be pretty sure if paying players from Leaderboards that have tight groups locking up the top spots start quitting in any number -- there will be a change.

"leef;1007728" wrote:

"benacrow;1007641" wrote:
In the current setup, there's no reason not to communicate with your shardmates. It's all based on what you gain most from playing, and what you find the most fun. If you enjoy sniping people's payouts throughout the day, then go ahead and do it, just don't be surprised when you get trained back by several people.

Personally, I enjoy raids the most, and find arena to be a chore. Consequently, I put as little time into arena as possible, which is why I love communicating with shardmates. Get my rank and do battles in a set time period (some time between 2 hrs before payout and payout), then move on with my life with my 500 crystals that I can use to gear toons and enjoy raids more.

There is no 'best' or 'intended' way to play arena. But there is a smartest way, and that's by communicating. Why? Because it is the most effecient use of crystals. If you are able to spend 0 refreshes and hit max rank each day, that's a net gain of 500 crystals. But if you spend 2-3 refreshes a day wasting battles throughout other payouts just to get hit back and try to move up again, then maybe refreshing a single cooldown to lock in at payout, that's 200-300 crystals wasted trying to take top rank, if you even do take that. So then there's a net gain of maybe 200 crystals. You're telling me you'd rather waste more time throughout the day battling everyone and end up with the same crystals as top 20 rank instead of battling for maybe 15 mins total and netting 500 crystals? I wouldn't either, but I don't enjoy arena.

so basically your arena leaderboard "enemies/friends" are helping you to get 500 crystals each day, wich in term would help you outperform your guildmates in raids.
that is pretty funny from an objective point of view.

That is exactly what I was getting at in my post. The Arena is far more team orientated then Guilds. Guilds have just become mini leader-boards for a single top reward that is only 2-3 times a week. Meanwhile Arena is a chance for a number of individuals to work together so they ALL can get a top rewards EVERY day.

(Edit: typo's, clearing up info)

The problem with "highest rank reached" is everybody in the top tier could spend 3-4 battles with their best squad battling up to #1 and then set a blue gear defense squad. It'd be even more exploitable. As you climb you just make sure you don't run into somebody else climbing-fight somebody with blue gear. Now you say what happens when a lone sniper comes along? Well this kind of payout system would allow even more people to collude for more rewards, so therefore you have a larger force to say "fight X player" so that they wouldn't even have a chance to get to #1 because they would be brought so far down.

The "average rank" and only one payout seem ok, but I'm sure its not beyond exploit. The thing about these types of exploits is to remember that game developers don't always have an "intended" design for the game or certain aspects, rather they create a system and allow the players to find the best way to use it for their own advantage (against each other, in this case.) Sometimes they see something as being abusive, and it gets labeled as an exploit and patched, and other times they see it being used in a way that wasn't intended but does not bother them or seem like cheating.

In some ways, metas are the same way. While the zMaul lead dominates right now, the most common 5-man squad is Rex · GK · Chirrut · Baze · Darth Nihilus. I doubt the developers intended one of the top synergies to consist of a Clone Wars Clone and General, two R1 characters, and a sith lord who reigned thousands of years before....but people found it to be a strong squad and will utilize it as such. This doesn't automatically make it cheating, but it does mean the boundaries of the game are pushed to the limit.

This leaves you with four options:
1. Complain about it and keep playing the way you think is "fair". (Its a video game, so don't get too moral about it...)
2. Follow the crowd once the meta is established. (Super boring, but you can compete.)
3. Push the limits yourself and try to either predict the next meta or find this meta's downfall.
4. Quit and play something more predictable. Don't look for PvP, because people will always "exploit" or find whatever way they can to push the limit.

"Broulan;1007930" wrote:
The problem with "highest rank reached" is everybody in the top tier could spend 3-4 battles with their best squad battling up to #1 and then set a blue gear defense squad. It'd be even more exploitable.

What incentive would people have to do that instead of playing as competitively as they can? Just to gather good will in anticipation that somebody else might build an unbeatable squad someday?

"lisztophobia;1007950" wrote:

"Broulan;1007930" wrote:
The problem with "highest rank reached" is everybody in the top tier could spend 3-4 battles with their best squad battling up to #1 and then set a blue gear defense squad. It'd be even more exploitable.

What incentive would people have to do that instead of playing as competitively as they can? Just to gather good will in anticipation that somebody else might build an unbeatable squad someday?

At least in today's meta it seems every squad has the rock to its scissors... The incentive is you can get more as a server out of raids and such. I doubt if all you had to do to reach a rank was hit it once then people would defend it in a stalwart manner. There's no reason to.

Edit: to add, why even waste the time? Once you hit #1, you're there, so why waste the time doing additional battles? If the current state of most older shards colluding continues though, I would be completely surprised were these players to stop collaboration due to some design change.

"Broulan;1007955" wrote:
I doubt if all you had to do to reach a rank was hit it once then people would defend it in a stalwart manner. There's no reason to.

Well, either watching your rank like a hawk & trying to keep hold of it all day long or putting in a blue geared squad to give opponents easy wins... are just two opposite extremes with the (IMO more probable) middle option(s) missing.

As for rigging the shard to improve raid progress... what are the odds that your guildmates are on the same arena shard as you? I think it'd take a group of people coordinating the creation of new accounts to really ensure any noticable benefits to a guild... which would beg the question of whether it's worth all the trouble.

I hate the mechanic as well personally, but it's unlikely to change. Ideally, I would like for there to be a mix with a "league" based arena and a rank based one (perhaps that's what guild v guild will look like). At the end of the day though, anything that can be exploited will be exploited. That's just people.

@Synergy Earlier on the thread you said there isnt a way for devs to implement a way to stop collusion. There are ways though. One way is you could revamp arena. Make it a blind arena where you get a random enemy above you in rank within a few places, and base ranking on a point system. That's just one example.

"Synergy;1007646" wrote:

"spotremix;1007110" wrote:
when i did arena on a regular basis i did my 5 battles whenever i wanted. i don't care who's payout time it was. my goal for arena back then was to be at the best possible rank at all times.

i use to space 3 battles throughout the day and try to finish the 3rd battle around my payout time. that left me with 2 battles after my payout time and i never hesitated to use them.

as far as i'm concerned arena is every man/woman for themselves at all non cheating costs.

Collusion does not break developer "intent" nor does it violate the ToS as it is not hacking the game nor is it a form of cheating. Collusion was patched with Tournaments relatively quickly after release, whereas collusion has been allowed to continue in Arena for the entire duration of the game with the devs almost certainly knowing about it. This, if anything, is an implicit "ok" from the devs that this is working as intended. It has never changed in the past, it probably isn't going to change now, and thinking it will just because you happen to be struggling in your shard is just naive. The OP is speculating about the developer "intent" when in reality, Arena is just a Free For All environment (emphasis on All).
Consider this, you're in the Colosseum with 9 other gladiators. You sneak off to the locker room and **** on everyone else's gear, just because you feel like it. The others find out and agree to team up on you when it's time to fight.
No one is doing anything wrong here. FFA means you have the freedom to do whatever you want (**** on other people's gear). FFA also means everyone else has the freedom to do what they want (team up against you).
Actions have consequences. When you step all over other people's payouts, you're going to turn people against you. You have the freedom to play however you want within the ToS, and sniping outside your payout is not prohibited. That's fine, but you can't expect others to not have that same freedom to play how they want.

It probably breaks intent because the tutorial for the game doesnt at all mention colluding for arena, and arena has strong connotations of a true FFA. Also, saying something is intended because the developers have failed to address it is fallacious. Thats like saying tax loopholes are intended (maybe sometimes lol, but not always).

Lets make arena great. The devs can do it. I came up with a solution, maybe its subpar, but im just a layperson! Arena is greater (you said yourself) if its a REAL FFA.

All this to save three bucks a day......hahahahaha.

"lisztophobia;1008004" wrote:

"Broulan;1007955" wrote:
I doubt if all you had to do to reach a rank was hit it once then people would defend it in a stalwart manner. There's no reason to.

Well, either watching your rank like a hawk & trying to keep hold of it all day long or putting in a blue geared squad to give opponents easy wins... are just two opposite extremes with the (IMO more probable) middle option(s) missing.

As for rigging the shard to improve raid progress... what are the odds that your guildmates are on the same arena shard as you? I think it'd take a group of people coordinating the creation of new accounts to really ensure any noticable benefits to a guild... which would beg the question of whether it's worth all the trouble.

I agree we'd probably see more middle ground, but I doubt that groups of players working together to gain more advantage would go away in any system.