Balancing idea

My kids started playing a couple days ago and were really excited to play. They are all fairly avid gamers and after a couple of days, they quit.

I asked them why and they showed me. They each played a couple matches with their MK2 enforcer and shooter and in asl but one match, their entire team was eaten alive by an MK4 shooter who had obviously lowered their infamy.

Rovio, this is going to cause you revenue loss. People are simply not going to bother playing.

My suggestion is to add logic to the match builder that does not allow for a ship to be matched with or against shops 1 rank up or down of all the other ships regardless of infamy. Yes, this would mean that people could still over power a lower rank ship with their higher level gear, but it would also mean that they would be more vulnerable.

Rewards can be adjusted based upon the league you are in. For example: if you are in Nightmare league and you decide to play the fixer you never ranked up against players who are not in a season yet, your infamy, gold and sugar reward could be as low as 10% of what you would normally receive.

This could allow advanced players to fleet with newer players in a more casual way.

 

This has been noted by the devs and they have implemented reward losses for those so do what that shooter has done. It's called seal clubbing (maybe you knew that idk). It's a common problem around that infamy level but just know that those people are getting absolutely nothing for their idiocrocy. Of course the "punishment" may not kick in for a while until thr game knows the player is exploiting the system, but it is dealing with the problem

 

The point of this type of balancing is to limit their ability to club the baby seals. If people want to fight below their ability, they should be handicapped. This is a relatively simple way to do it.

Those people who intentionally lower their infamy will just find themselves taking longer and longer for the system to match them up. Eventually they will be just fighting against each other or quitting.

 

I have an identical experience when I tried getting some friends and family into the game. They all quit because they said the matchmaking was crap and one of the worse multiplayer experiences they've ever had from a balance perspective. I was a bit bummed out since I was really looking forward to play with them, but I really don't blame them and totally understand how they feel. The devs won't do anything about it though. They're doubling down in that the system is perfect the way it is and you'll get a couple of fan boys that agree with them despite 2/3 (66%) of the playerbase complaining about the balance issues. At some point they will start losing people if they aren't already, at which point there will hopefully be a miracle patch that solves many balance issue complaints.

 

I worry that the player base is simply too small. If that is the case, no amount of tinkering with matchmaking will fix that. You either have extraordinarily long wait times or mismatches.

I don't have the numbers in front of me of course....just want success for the game like everyone else on the forum.

Of course, it would be great if there was a training mode with bots, as noted in another current thread, to alleviate the pressure of PvP combat. We could use it at all levels.

 

Yea that would be super frustrating and I imagine the new player drop out rate is relatively high due to this issue. It's discouraging. :-/ And probably quite difficult to fix as well in a truly balanced way. Especially since ships can be upgraded regardless of skill or infamy. So say you are a very bad player who has been playing for a long time and has a mk 6 boat but only 2000 infamy... with that math builder logic, you will either end up in a very small pool (2000 infamy players with mk6 boats) or facing off against much better players and your infamy will continue to sink.

Tough to solve... it's been an issue since day 1 and I think the hope was that a larger player base would naturally solve the issue. :-/

 

The infamy system is far more tricky than most can imagine. I don't think it will be changed any time soon.

But I do hope for stricter banning. Currently the banning for infamy tanking is a complete joke. The loot penalty for infamy tanking can be avoided so easily (which is mainly to make it fair for people who drop unintentionally). But I've seen players drop 1000 infamy on purpose then raise 1000 infamy farming back and making tons of loot. Like the well-known NaveFantasma who was at 200 infamy as an ace player. He still seal clubs and no bans. He uses mk5 ships to get to 3k infamy then uses a mk3 speeder to shoot enemies while he suicides to make it look like he's trying to contribute in the match. Doing so he avoids loot penalty. He is reported by many but he is still going at it.

I'd love for Rovio to hire a few people in the office who's job is to check reports then to check the battle logs of the reported players.

There could also be warnings. These warnings would show up like a ban but go away after they press "ok" saying "You have been suspected of tanking infamy. Purposely ruining the game for other players will result in a ban. You have been warned."

 

We did not have these issues when I started playing nearly 3 months ago

I didn't find any mk4s till I reached late 700s, how the hell are mk4 ships down there?.

Did the player base drop down at asignificant rate in the past 2 months?

How do we even know that the said shoiter is a seal clubber?, what if he's some 10 year old who doesn't understand the game mechanics and plays horribly and hence is at 400s?

Btw, it's practically useless to seal club right now, even if you drop infamy, you only keep fighting players around the infamy level of your highest recorded in the season I hear.