Matchmaking (or the lack thereof)

Thanks @TheRedSpeeder.
@MrGuPe, Hey, I'm not "following" you like mentioned. And trust me, I have a life. I have a full time job, I have a family, house, working vehicle, hobbies, etc. So you mentioning that is extremely narrow-minded and unwarranted. I'm merely here help those who have issues or concerns and just make sure this community is active and helps each other out. I enjoy this game and I'm just trying to help you enjoy it as well. That's all.

 

It is what's in place now, you just don't realize it. Later down the road you will notice that certain increases with gear upgrades get you past an infamy wall, and you gain a few more points. And it's basically based on your skill and ship power together. Matchmaking by Ship power will not include skill that could offset your infamy placement, so although I don't think the current infamy system is perfect, it works, because it's what everyone is using and there's a baseline.

 

Do this many people really cry about matchmaking?

 

Yes, unfortunately.
A large portion of the players ranging between 1000-2000 infamy seem to care about their winning percentages, even though it would end up being a fraction of their total games played (30 days). Won't realize that eventually it will level off when they reach their plateau / where their gains in Gear and skill begin to level off and slow down. Which would mean that they "stay" at a certain infamy, and due to this, their winning and losses are approximately 50/50. Which means that 30 days of 50/50 + draws would result in approximately 47-49%. When you look at players that have been playing for more than 2 months, most of them have a much lower winning percentage (45-50%).

They cry about matchmaking because of the AFKers' and Suiciders and players that have figured out the system and attempting to exploit it. Those players realize that winning percentage is nothing(so is infamy really), and that it takes more time and effort to play your best and at your peak infamy than not. Those players are purposely lowering their infamy for easier wins to gain both stars and resources. Whether you agree with their tactic or not, it's still a valid method to gaining resources and gear. Which at the end of the day, is the entire point. Which leads to gear...

This game is heavily reliant on the type of gear you have to enable you to be at your best. I can say right now that no Nightmare player can reach nightmare with low level common or low level uncommon items in their ship.

I know a lot of people like to boast Skill and want to believe that Skill can overcome all, but without gear you cannot do it. It's sort of like a sport, if you don't have the proper tools, you won't be able to play well in that league regardless if you can strike a ball or be able to dunk. You just don't have the height, build, or physique to compete. Based on the equipment and training you have, skills and training can be acquired later. It's no different here in Battle Bay. To get high up in Infamy you need to have the full package.

 

Wrong. What is in place now is matchmaking based on infamy, not ship power. In other words, it's based on a MMR, not combat stats. That's a fundamentally different thing.

Now you contradicted yourself. This, however, is sort of correct. The infamy range you will end up in is indeed a combination of skill and ship power.

 

@D3X - I know the skill > gear was intended for me and I can appreciate the fact that you're standing by your stance. I'm starting to understand what you mean as I climb the infamy ladder.
I'm starting to get to a point where I'm not doing enough damage and by me switching to defender is the only way I can win because I have to "take" the hits while at the same time "dealing" damage.
My shooter doesn't have enough hp to survive and my weapons aren't "powerful" enough to deal 5k+ damage every match.
So I can understand now that rares, epics, and legendary weapons are truly necessary if I want to compete in this game and continue up the leagues.
Thanks for helping me understand this.

 

I'm starting to hit a plateau due to the fact that my weapons are only t2 and my ships are only mk3. I will not get into the 2k infamy range until I change something and honestly, I don't want to be up that high because people running mk4/5/6 will be destroying me. I'm happy where I'm at right now and I think that w/ my skill and ship info, I'm where I need to be...1500 range.

 

Like I said, you don't get it. Your infamy is based on what? Winning with the current skills and gear and who've you played with. so in other words, it is a derivative of your combat stats including your skill to get your current infamy. How's it different? Battle Bay has obviously weighed this, and without your current gear you won't have the infamy you have now (imagine MK1 with T1 commons), get my drift?

 

Right. It's just part of the journey of Battle Bay. In the beginning, progress is quick and fast. Within 1-2 days you're able to upgrade your weapons to T2, MK2, and gain quite a few infamy. As you go along, the curve starts leveling off. By the time you get to level 20 ish, you're now getting to MK3-MK4 range and you're about 3 times slower than before, requiring duplicates and more resources to make gains with your weapons and crew level. By 30, it's really slow, takes weeks to find a duplicate item, weeks of playing to get crew level higher to level your weapons, and will be maybe 2-3 months til you get to MK6. With MK6, it's 3 times slower than MK5 and probably takes months to years to max your items. See what I mean? So in that whole entire gaming timeframe, what you've experienced (unless you are P2W) is only a small fraction of what is ahead on a long long road.

So in other words, you're just getting started. You'll realize what really matters further down the road. I've been through what you've gone through, and it seems simple and you're a tad optimistic, but later on it's a different story and you realize it's a grind and none of the stuff that mattered in the beginning matters anymore (stat, infamy, winning percentage, suiciders/afk matchmaking etc).

 

I understand all that but the devs have already said they're banning people who continuously afk in matches, etc, and I know, this game actually, in my opinion is much more dependent on what gear you have rather than your skill if you want to pass up people with better ships in infamy, you can be an amazing mortar player or whatever, but your health will only carry you for so long when enemies are taking half your health off in one shot. This is where I find clash royale better, yes there's a pay to win aspect but people at level 7 etc are reaching legendary arena which is the place for 10s and 11s mostly. So while it is troop level based, its also based quite a bit on your skill and your use of the current meta, which is what I like about it, and clash royale isn't THAT old of a game but I feel they've done a very good job with it, this game.. I don't know. I mean I see mk2s with 2 epic weapons and I'm sitting here hardly getting rares when i just got my upgrade done yesterday for mk3. So, ya know.

 

Sigh. Stop arguing how two different things are the same, it makes no sense. Yes I understand what you mean. Of course gear indirectly factors in. That doesn't mean there's no difference.

To reply directly: it's different, because in a 100% item based system, you do not naturally rise in infamy. Your infamy ranking would be 100% skill based, and getting better items would not help you. Which means people who are... untalented, would sit in very low infamy forever, and would likely quit the game for that reason alone. And it means that everyone has zero reason to upgrade their items, like I said before. It would not allow you to climb higher in infamy.

 

Um, in that case why make weapons and gear any different or better? Everyone should only be able to used fixed weapon sets with fixed stats, everyone all the same ships. Then battle for stats on a level playing field. No advantage of items or skills. You realize that this ranking system you speak of would not work in Rovio's design, you're talking of a different game entirely.

 

This.
It's obvious that Rovio wants people to spend money on items. This is how they pay their development team and keep the game alive (and they deserve it!). It's also fun as a player to hunt for better items. So, items should make a difference.

Here is a short anecdote which happened lately (it was a little bit shocking, but I'm not complaining - in the end, it was over after 60 seconds):
I had a little bit above 1k infamy and participated in a battle with my fixer. There was this enemy speeder which appeared on the radar after 10 seconds. BOOM! He one-shotted one of my team-mates. Uh, I thought, that was fast.
After another 10 seconds he approached me with very high speed. I managed to freeze him with my frost blaster, but he still was fast. During my global cooldown, he approached my fixer, started a torpedo and... BOOM! From fully-healed to zero, with just one shot from his legendary torpedo (quite impressive on this level).
I then watched the two shooters of my team mates. He approached them another 10 seconds later. He starts a torpedo and... BOOM! Both shooters destroyed with one torpedo. From full health down to zero.
It took him another 15 seconds to get to the last team member and he one-shotted him with a torpedo. Up to this time, the rest of the enemy team wasn't even visible on the radar screen, nor fired a single shot.
I would say, that was impressive, but also something the matchmaking system shouldn't allow too many times...

 

Yeah
His name is OWNato
Known farmer of noobs