Zetas & Arena

Darth Vader has only two zetas. For lots of characters if they have a zeta it's usually the unique or leadership abilities.
As for the squad arena; Everyone is broken up into their own shards. A group of people that started around your time. That way not everyone is pitted against 5 million gp accounts when they unlock arena

How do we find what "shard" we are? It doesn't say in Squad Arena. And I'm in with ppl who began when I did? Top ppl in my Squad Arena (I've only been playing for 9 mos) are already fully loaded with zeta'd Darth Revan & Darth Malak teams-- making them as competitive as anyone in any Squad. EA classification based on start time does nothing to spare us from Merciless Whales. This is intentional of course...(they should still reveal the zetas somehow as many toons have 3)

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922691" wrote:
How do we find what "shard" we are? It doesn't say in Squad Arena. And I'm in with ppl who began when I did? Top ppl in my Squad Arena (I've only been playing for 9 mos) are already fully loaded with zeta'd Darth Revan & Darth Malak teams-- making them as competitive as anyone in any Squad. EA classification based on start time does nothing to spare us from Merciless Whales. This is intentional of course...(they should still reveal the zetas somehow as many toons have 3)

You're with 20,000 people that started at roughly the same time as you. When one shard fills up with 20,000 people a new one opens. It used to take a day or two to fill a shard. Now it takes a week or two I think. Maybe a month.

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922691" wrote:
How do we find what "shard" we are? It doesn't say in Squad Arena. And I'm in with ppl who began when I did? Top ppl in my Squad Arena (I've only been playing for 9 mos) are already fully loaded with zeta'd Darth Revan & Darth Malak teams-- making them as competitive as anyone in any Squad. EA classification based on start time does nothing to spare us from Merciless Whales. This is intentional of course...(they should still reveal the zetas somehow as many toons have 3)

Would you rather be in the same arena as me, a day 1 player? If they did one thing right, it's this. Everyone starts on a level field the day they start.

Your shardmates didn't necessarily start at the exact same time you did. A shard contains 20k people, I think? And a new shard just opens when the last one fills up. So if you're the 19,999th person to join, the first person will of course be way ahead of you.

Also, since the game is fairly "mature" at this point, any newer shards are going to be disproportionately populated with alternate accounts and people who started over - in both cases, they'll already know the exact optimal farming path to keep them at the top of the arena right off the bat. So you'll need to read up and follow their example if you want to compete.

I'm on a pretty old shard (2015? whatever the first year was) and it's a double edged sword - the people at the top have absolutely insane mods and are close to untouchable, but it's also very easy to stay in the top 100 because most of the shard is inactive.

"No_Try;c-1922696" wrote:

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922691" wrote:
How do we find what "shard" we are? It doesn't say in Squad Arena. And I'm in with ppl who began when I did? Top ppl in my Squad Arena (I've only been playing for 9 mos) are already fully loaded with zeta'd Darth Revan & Darth Malak teams-- making them as competitive as anyone in any Squad. EA classification based on start time does nothing to spare us from Merciless Whales. This is intentional of course...(they should still reveal the zetas somehow as many toons have 3)

Would you rather be in the same arena as me, a day 1 player? If they did one thing right, it's this. Everyone starts on a level field the day they start.

THAT leveled-ness doesn't even last 24 hrs given that some players start whalin'? out right away and before you know it, your shard is drastically divided into inventories & squads which are leagues apart in power. It's completely ineffective.

"Jarvind;c-1922700" wrote:
Your shardmates didn't necessarily start at the exact same time you did. A shard contains 20k people, I think? And a new shard just opens when the last one fills up. So if you're the 19,999th person to join, the first person will of course be way ahead of you.

Also, since the game is fairly "mature" at this point, any newer shards are going to be disproportionately populated with alternate accounts and people who started over - in both cases, they'll already know the exact optimal farming path to keep them at the top of the arena right off the bat. So you'll need to read up and follow their example if you want to compete.

I'm on a pretty old shard (2015? whatever the first year was) and it's a double edged sword - the people at the top have absolutely insane mods and are close to untouchable, but it's also very easy to stay in the top 100 because most of the shard is inactive.

Can we just ask shards to have players at near same GP? Or for Squad Arena have shards for players with top 5 toons nearly equivalent (like a 70k NS might = 80k Phoenix)... But of course they haven't done this-- so as to intentionally encourage us to go Whaling?...?

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922705" wrote:

"Jarvind;c-1922700" wrote:
Your shardmates didn't necessarily start at the exact same time you did. A shard contains 20k people, I think? And a new shard just opens when the last one fills up. So if you're the 19,999th person to join, the first person will of course be way ahead of you.

Also, since the game is fairly "mature" at this point, any newer shards are going to be disproportionately populated with alternate accounts and people who started over - in both cases, they'll already know the exact optimal farming path to keep them at the top of the arena right off the bat. So you'll need to read up and follow their example if you want to compete.

I'm on a pretty old shard (2015? whatever the first year was) and it's a double edged sword - the people at the top have absolutely insane mods and are close to untouchable, but it's also very easy to stay in the top 100 because most of the shard is inactive.

Can we just ask shards to have players at near same GP? Or for Squad Arena have shards for players with top 5 toons nearly equivalent (like a 70k NS might = 80k Phoenix)... But of course they haven't done this-- so as to intentionally encourage us to go Whaling?...?

You can ask for whatever you want. They already answered this:

WhatIth: Will either arena ever be reworked?
Not sure what the question is asking. If the question is will the actual structure of Arena or Fleet Arena be changed (rank swap, payout times, shard sizes, etc) the answer is no.

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/199997/developers-q-a-faq/p1

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922702" wrote:

"No_Try;c-1922696" wrote:

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922691" wrote:
How do we find what "shard" we are? It doesn't say in Squad Arena. And I'm in with ppl who began when I did? Top ppl in my Squad Arena (I've only been playing for 9 mos) are already fully loaded with zeta'd Darth Revan & Darth Malak teams-- making them as competitive as anyone in any Squad. EA classification based on start time does nothing to spare us from Merciless Whales. This is intentional of course...(they should still reveal the zetas somehow as many toons have 3)

Would you rather be in the same arena as me, a day 1 player? If they did one thing right, it's this. Everyone starts on a level field the day they start.

THAT leveled-ness doesn't even last 24 hrs given that some players start whalin'? out right away and before you know it, your shard is drastically divided into inventories & squads which are leagues apart in power. It's completely ineffective.

And that's intended, of course they'll design it in a way to incentivise spending.

Do you have any ideas what they would have done instead? Like waking up to a new day where you are in a new arena where everyone spent the same as you? Or one big arena where all the players are together? Maybe divide players into segments all across the game in terms of their spending and effectively make a segregated game?

For your initial question, the game has millions of players, no way to know how many are active from our side. Take the number of total accounts, divide it by 20k, that's how many shards there are. Some of my peers purposefully tried to fall back in their arenas, they didn't manage to fall beyond 500-600th spot with a single HYoda and such mock teams (these are generally old shards but not necessarily day 1). So that's how many are active in their respective shards.

"jhbuchholz;c-1922711" wrote:

"MasterJediBrian;c-1922705" wrote:

"Jarvind;c-1922700" wrote:
Your shardmates didn't necessarily start at the exact same time you did. A shard contains 20k people, I think? And a new shard just opens when the last one fills up. So if you're the 19,999th person to join, the first person will of course be way ahead of you.

Also, since the game is fairly "mature" at this point, any newer shards are going to be disproportionately populated with alternate accounts and people who started over - in both cases, they'll already know the exact optimal farming path to keep them at the top of the arena right off the bat. So you'll need to read up and follow their example if you want to compete.

I'm on a pretty old shard (2015? whatever the first year was) and it's a double edged sword - the people at the top have absolutely insane mods and are close to untouchable, but it's also very easy to stay in the top 100 because most of the shard is inactive.

Can we just ask shards to have players at near same GP? Or for Squad Arena have shards for players with top 5 toons nearly equivalent (like a 70k NS might = 80k Phoenix)... But of course they haven't done this-- so as to intentionally encourage us to go Whaling?...?

You can ask for whatever you want. They already answered this:

WhatIth: Will either arena ever be reworked?
Not sure what the question is asking. If the question is will the actual structure of Arena or Fleet Arena be changed (rank swap, payout times, shard sizes, etc) the answer is no.

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/199997/developers-q-a-faq/p1

Many a judges have changed their answers over time. Sometimes you just have to keep asking.