Let's Talk About Controlling Infamy

Infamy tanking or as other people call it “controlling infamy” seems to be prevalent at my level, Ace 1, and probably at lower levels too. I see a ton of threads related to this and wanted to compile a list as to why do people do it. Let’s put together a scenario where a player could top out as a high level Ace 1 player at around 3,800 infamy but prefers to control their infamy at around 3,000 instead. Here’s why:

PROS

Better Matchups – Players in the 3,200 – 3,999 infamy range are often matched up against high level nightmare players. Sometimes the infamy difference can be as much as 2,000. They’re overmatched, it’s a waste of time, and not fun.

Guild Rivalry Tokens – Artificially lowering their infamy allows them to better contribute to guild rivalries. They can stay alive longer, do more damage, and sink more ships. Often, when you’re maxing out your infamy you’re stuck with one ship and one loadout. Lowering their infamy allows them to switch between ships and use different weapons. More rivalry tokens consequently gives the player a better chance to get epic perks, epic pieces, legendary pieces, more parts, etc from the raffle.

More Stars, Gold, and Sugar Per Match – Again, lowering infamy allows them to stay alive longer, do more damage, and sink more ships.

Not Labelled Infamy Tanker – If a player loses 600-700 infamy or so, they get labelled as an infamy tanker and their stars, gold, and sugar earned per match get reduced. Sometimes it’s inevitable, when trying their best, that they get labelled as an infamy tanker. In some cases, a player gets put into a series of very favorable matchups and are clearly way above the infamy they should be. Then the fall back down to their mean, and boom, they’re an infamy tanker. Other times they get put into a series of unfavorable matchups and don’t have enough firepower to win a few on their own. Controlling infamy allows the player leeway to blast their way out of an infamy hole.

CONS

Season Rewards – Season rewards will be worse but not that much worse. If you’re topping out at around 3,800 infamy most of the top ten in your Ace 1 group will inevitably reach nightmare level. The reward for 11th place is 1 epic piece, 2 epic power cells, 30 epic parts, and 420,000 gold. The rewards for finishing 65th is 1 epic piece, 2 epic power cells, 30 epic parts, and 200,000 gold.


So essentially, these people are sacrificing 200,000 gold for all those other positives. And they’re making up that gold difference if they play a bunch of matches. Clearly the mechanics and rewards need to change to prevent this.

 

The worst season reward for Nightmare League is 1m gold, 30 legendary parts, 30 epic parts, 5 Epic pieces and 1 legendary piece.

I'd take this reward over any Pros you listed.

I refuse to believe that those people are intentionally not moving into Nightmare. They are in denial. They are just not good enough and pretend/claim that they "tank".

But that's just my opinion. What you said could be true too

 

Raffle rewards are more worthy than any league rewards. You only get pieces in league that too by working your a#& off.
By staying low you could run through quests get tokens spin the wheel. You get perks( ambient gold) you get pieces you get parts you get pearls. Bonus raffles even give to free epics and new achievement things staying low you deal more damage get those epics and legendaries. See how worthwhile it is to tank infamy.

 

No matter what excuses they make, people tank because they are too soft to compete.

 

I've been close but can't make it get to 3600 - 3800 and I draw horrible teammates and drop way down to 2200. This has happened a few times and while I'm dropping most battles I do most damage and sink ships but teams seem like a bunch of noobs. In no way am I trying to "tank" I battle my arse off trying to win every battle I guess I just suck.

 

I suck too or everyone are noobs too. But in reference to your infamy points I would fall under the noob category or have crappy gear. But most games I get top rank using Fixer. And it's just a MK2.

 

most likely control infamy for better battle reward. if you do it right, u get better battle reward in 1000 then 3000.

another reason they dont want to go over 3k is that u feeding those cash players, acting as their toy and dev's slavery so those players willing to pay.

ladder is a trap dev use it to trap those players who believe in compete and honor stuff to feed thoese cash player. once cash players found it fun and enjoyable they start to spend more.

smart players use infamy control to stay in some infamy range that provides fare enviroment and win with skill.

 

I get it. I actually stay in the low end to help win guild quests. Plus since I am NOT one of the paying players, I chose to do what I can with the in game winnings to do what I can. But even if I wanted to up my imfamy I would get creamed by those other MK2 players with much better gear that is impossible to obtain unless you coined to gain it.

 

We all have sucky games for sure. We are all very dependent on our teammates to pull us through to victory. But remember, your teammates are relying on you just as much as you rely on them. Always do as you say and battle your arse off. Every point of damage you do counts!

I'm sure there are games where your teammates saved the game after you totally blew it. Conversely, I'm sure there are games where you were the MVP. Don't be discouraged!

 

As an around 3k infamy player I prefer to be matched against 2 top P2W players than against Bittersteel

 

People leaving off the most important benefit of all for going for high infamy: improvement
Not your boat, but your skill.
You have to actually put in effort and play sharp in order to win games, whereas if you are "controlling your infamy" you will never really learn/get better because you're content with either winning or losing. How do you expect your tactics to get better if all you do is mindlessly shoot in order to get gold etc. also, I find it much more fun to be challenged

 

Unfortunately item strength is more important than skill in this game, infamy is largely a reflection of your items. Considering the tens or hundreds of millions of gold and sugar and good RNG to get those items all beefed up to compete, I can understand how a large chunk of the bay just wants to maximize their incoming resources. It's completely counter-productive to skill, but it's the way the game was designed.

 

That's so wrong! Skill is our best item

 

Lol nah.

 

I would disagree, you hit nightmare and you see players of similar item levels all over the infamy map. If skill wasn't a big factor they'd all be quite similar in infamy.

 

It all depends on your team and you strategy.... we will all die quickly at times and lose battles we should have won. All in all if you just enjoy the win or lose you’ll be good.

 

It's none of these things and some of all of these at the same time. What happens at the top of nitemare trickles down to lowest infamy. When a player goes above 5k they can hardly fleet unless other 5k players are online. That window of time is very small sometimes every other day. Then once a top player hits the infamy they want. And get tired of waiting 15 to 30 to 45 minutes for one battle. They throw their hands up in the air with disgust. And infamy tank down 500 to 800 pts. This in turn start the cyle downward. These players do it to get a game. Lower tiered players do it for easier rewards. By the way once u can do 5k conaistently. U won't care about gold or sugar much. I am 5 trainings away from all trainings done. And at this point. Gold n sugar are meaningless. Unless I wanna build a new weapon.



They need to fix matchmaking and getting fleets at 5k beyond so the games don't take forever to play just one match. Once this is fixed. Lower players won't feel the squeeze as much.

Lastly the 4k reset every 2 weeks throws the issue of infamy suppression and manipulation into every boat mk.7 down to beginners. Because the great 6k player now gets put back to 4k. All of us do. So anyone under. Will get squashed.

They need to create a new league. That resets at 5k. This will make the effect felt by lower league boats less obvious. The horrid infamy swells and crashes at 2k will be a thing of the past. By moving the new resey point up 1k and make it a 5k league. Called legendary.
By doing this. The new crash point will be raisdd to Ace league Around 3k.

Noobs. nd boats lower league. Wont have to worry so hard about infamy control.

 

As a person who has managed my own infamy for nearly my entire career in Battle Bay I'd say you hit the nail on the head. I've been preaching this for a while. Rovio has chosen to scale rewards with level not with infamy. So the min/max answer is to be high level at low infamy. Gosh, that sounds familiar.

The good news is that they are slowly starting to think about their incentive structure. You can see it in the last patch and, in fact, things have gotten better ... at least in the 1400 and below range.

 

I may be entirely wrong but Imo players tank only for guild quests. I have a few screenshots that I can share (cant edit them on phone so take my word for it until then) with players doing quests for firebombs, swift torps and such and have piled on uncommon and common gear at Ace1. It's an added bonus to see defenders with a railgun or mortars or missile launchers or all 3 if you are unlucky. Players don't even play the boats they are using as intended. Some of my favourite "questing champs" setups are defenders with mortars and no close range weapons, speeders with a napalm, shooters with 4 mortars or torps, enfo with all mines and a Tesla shield and not to mention that one fixer who wants to be a shooter (nothing wrong with that, just use that pulse near your teammates).

It's true they learn nothing but they do get better gear. Better gear means more chances of success and since they have made it to Ace 1 while sucking on guild quests means these players know how to shoot a weapon as well.

 

Wow. Thank you for taking the time to write out that really fascinating view from the top.

I'd like to put this in. I'm pretty sure that some of the changes Rovio has made, notably in the guild quests, have reduced tanking (at least in the sub 1700 ranges) to a noticeable degree. I say this because over the last few hundred matches at 1500-1700 infamy I've seen fewer M6's than I used to at 1200. Mostly I am fighting M5's... one mark above me with the odd M4 and M6. Either I've passed the tanking zone which seems implausible at only 1700 infamy or else things are getting better. I also notice, just as Rovio promised, that I am finding it easier to get at least 2 star performances when I'm at the top of my infamy range than I used to. So some of the cost of pushing infamy has been alleviated also. I think they have more work to do on the incentive structures but the changes they've made seem positive and I'm rooting for them.

I'd love to see a refresh of that chart Miika gave us that showed the distributions of captain level & infamy. I'm guessing there'd be visible shifting of those curves.