My matchmaking thoughts

Yeah, good points. I was thinking about league placement when I wrote that. Obviously it benefits you to have the highest peak infamy per season possible so that you get the league bonus, regardless of whether you stay near your peak. I haven't done any experiments, but it would be interesting to compare which leads to more rewards: being near your skill peak and getting consistently lower stars/rewards, or dropping infamy (i.e. losing battles) and then getting more 2-3 star battles. I suspect that the infamy shedding that would be necessary would negate a lot of the benefits of battling against lower level players.

 

Well that two ships that left had as much hp as half of our team together so..

But I don't think it was an unwinnable matchup. There's always a chance.. but here is was really, really small.

 

One of the things which would absolutely help is if the devs were a bit clearer on what, exactly the reward ARE for working at higher infamy. I've seen nothing other than sugar/gold bonuses which are more than offset by the reduced win position. It'd be a crying shame if there were really good reasons to not go seal clubbing and Rovio just didn't bother to mention them.

 

Haha yea happened few times. Yesterday i destroyed enemies shooter in first 30 seconds (hit my mine and then finished him with combo). I felt really bad for that enemies fixer who went to save him but failed, so then he just kept shooting repair bolts at me it was so funny I just couldn't destroy him lol.

 

Haha smooth

 

Actually, @The Grim Repair told me the exact opposite. Now, since the patch a few months ago, it is primarily SHIP level, and infamy is not as much a factor.
I was not given any specifics into whether it's 90-10, 75-25, 51-49......... so I still have no idea exactly how infamy and ship level are balanced relative to each other...

This made me sad though... because it's the wrong type of matchmaking system...
If you can properly incentivize players to reach their highest infamy ranking, then you can use infamy (purely - without considering anything else like ship level) in your matchmaking algorithm.
That way, players will always be pushed towards "fair" matches where they are restricted from reaching their highest infamy, where they will also win ~50% of the time (hooray!), and therefore maximize their rewards.

That's my utopia........ but unfortunately players are not incentivized to reach their highest infamy (thanks to weapon-specific rivalry quests). But even if they were, some players still wouldn't be "happy" because I have seen endless comments about how "the system is rigged to force you back down to a 50% win rate" even though that's exactly what everyone should want! HAHAHA! (I'm laughing because I'm really crying..................)

 

My mk4 fixer can do more damage than that

 

I can make it even more clear. If ship strength was the majority of the weighting then the practicing of tanking wouldn't work and myself and others wouldn't do it. In addition it is a very common occurrence that I'll see a team vastly outgunned on the basis of ship level. They routinely put 3 or 4 M5's on one team and only M4's and below on the other.

 

That is the most reasonable answer to this matchmaking problem. I myself have over 800 infamy at MK2 and I am getting paired up with MK5, but I actually do good with MK5, aside from being the main target. Those of you who complain about matchmaking just want an excuse to whine.

 

Imagine if the matchmaking changed to how people wanted it. You would finish the game in a few DAYS, and that would not be good.

 

I sort of agree with you. For a while I focused on the unbalanced matches also. Then I realized it wasn't how unbalanced the matches were, it was that I was penalized for fighting them.

My reaction to the new guild system is quite different. Sure, i put in a zillion hours of grinding on an unpleasant boat to get 1st place this week. But I'm going to be richly rewarded for that effort so I don't mind. I feel like a "winner" for having won.

 

Its not about changing algorithm, but avoiding ridiculous matches that are too difficult to win!
How do you explain a 1K infamy drop without intentional losing. Not me, its been a complaint among my guild mates too since update ..

 

Ohh lol, i did double negative. Thanks for notifying