Players beware : Do NOT try new ships or weapons.

I've been playing daily since launch. I played as fixer, because I found out it was easiest to climb infamy. I also don't have to level up a lot of different weapons, as fixer has only one red slot. I had wanted to climb infamy so I can get better battle rewards and progress faster. I started out this season at 2622 infamy.

Problem is, playing fixer all the time get boring! And it sucks to lose, despite doing a good job fixing, because of crappy team.

So I leveled up a speeder to mark 4 (can't get mark 5 yet, my captain level is 29). And my infamy has been dropping by about 200 per day. Not because I am kamakaze'ing or losing on purpose. Just losing more often than winning because I'm trying a new ship and new weapons. I'm now at 2022 infamy, exactly 600 less than when season started 3 days ago.

Well, it seems that the developers are punishing me as a "seal clubber." My battle rewards have been severely cut. I used to get about 20-28k gold for a win and 8-10k for a loss and now I get 6-7K for win and 1-2K for a loss. My star rewards are also cut. I get zero stars for winning, maybe 1 at best.

No explanation from Rovio why this has happened. They are basically telling me, and actively engaged player, who has purchased several epic crates, play daily to get 75 stars, to not play anymore. What's the point of playing when I can't progress due to crappy battle rewards? This is my punishment for trying to have fun in the game by trying out new boat and weapons? Let me be clear, I did not tank any games, although there were some games I got killed early because I'm still learning how to scout properly and navigate out of focused fire. There were games when I dominated (mostly when unfriendlies were bad players), and games when I sucked and got killed early, bu every game was played to win.

 

agreed. its not fun to play with one ship all the time.
the crew members retraining, expensive parts to lvl items, and the fact you lack experience playing other boats, are all that stands in the way to focus actively on more than one ship.

some people ofset this by leveling every ship at a very slow pace as they stay at very low infamy. since you, like the most of us, focused on one ship and got your infamy really high, it will be tough now to try anything new without dropping too much and losing your reward.
i personally dealt with it by creating another account, whenever i get the urge to play anything besides my main.

 

Hey think i recognize you, we used to be friends and fleet haha.
Yeah, they are punishing you as an infamy tanker.
Its not fair for you at all, sorry.

 

The only suggestion I have is play 3 or 4 games as speeder then play a couple as fixer. That's how I offset the losses for anything I try to play besides defender so that I don't drop too far. It's still a change up so it's fun and it brings appreciation back to the boat I do well with

 

That'll teach you for taking the easy way up the infamy ladder
Jokes aside, I really hope that the lads upstairs can find a way to figure this one out.
Some way to give each ship it's own infamy rating and crew training specs would be ideal, but it could be terribly unfair for the fresher crowd who'd have to deal with low evo vessels sporting the kind of gear that only the p2winners have at that level. I think they have a hard enough time dealing with that sort of thing as it is.

Limiting equipment to use on a single ship obviously wouldn't be feasible.
Perhaps a minimum starting infamy for each ship based on your current highest standing could just about do it? I don't know.

Since this is such a hugely discussed and disputed topic I'm sure that it's something the devs are looking into, but keep in mind that they are a small team and that the laws of logic are binding. Nobody wants gamebreaking changes.

I can't wait to see what the next update brings, I'm certain it'll be more fun than nerfs.

 

At minimum, the developers need to explain to the player what's going on. Cutting my battle wards severely like this means that there is no point for me to play. It's stupid to play when you can't progress. Explain why it happened, how it can be undone, etc.

Rovio has a great game on their hands, but they are driving players to quit the game left and right.

 

There's many explanations by Devs and players why rewards stop after a certain amount of infamy loss..to stop people intentionally dropping infamy.
I'm not saying YOU did..but it has been explained many times..and was in the patch notes last update iirc.

I'd have to agree with Rango8...if you're going to try new boats..play a limited amount of games with them..if you keep losing.. switch back.
Only thing you can do is go back to your tried and tested boat until your infamy climbs back up.

 

Developers can't expect every player to have browsed the forums and have come across "many explanations."

 

@Mangchi Well, you're blaming the devs, but you created the problem yourself. You only leveled up and learned to play one boat, and then when you became good at it and reached high infamy, want to swap. You should have either alternated and learned to play the speeder over time, or waited till you unlock speeder mk5 so you don't drop in infamy so much. Swapping from an mk5 ship that you're good at playing to an mk4 that you're not good at playing is your own fault, and as it negatively effects those who get matched with you, you now get punished for it.

Edit: I realize I made the assumption here that your fixer is mk5 since you're 29

 

Though I see your point, but I have to disagree with you here. Developers should be encouraging player's desire to play and get better and become stronger. Which is what I did while I was playing a fixer. Wtith the speeder, I'm doing the same thing.

It is the developers who created a paywall and made it difficult to level up different weapons. It is a balancing act for them. Facilitate players to have fun in the game (by allowing players to try out different weapons, different ships, get stronger, etc). If the message is too strong, that if you don't pay, then you have to keep on playing the same weapon, and same ship, players are going to quit. Which is basically what is happening.

There are other ways to deal with seal clubbers. One way is to match them up with other seal clubbers. But they can't do that right now because the current player pool is too small. It is a chicken/egg problem for them right now. They aren't heavily promoting this game, likely because the 1 month player retention metric is probably really sucky (there is no point to promote game and spend money to acquire players when they aren't staying on). Big part of the reason why players are dropping out is because there isn't that many other players. The small player pool is making match making proper matchmaking difficult (and this poor matchmaking is the biggest reason why players are quitting). Hence, chicken/egg.

 

Maybe not..but most online games have forums. If you'd have taken the time to look at the forum you'd have known.. and as I said..there was information about the patch on the main screen.. informing people of the consequences of dropping/losing a certain amount of infamy.
Why come to the forum to complain when it's too late??..if you had looked earlier you would have known..in no way is that the Devs fault.

 

I play a shooter and would like to play a fixer. BUT,
I upgraded fixer to MK3. For MK4, I now require about 1.5 million gold.
Problem is not solved even now. I've only level 1 rare overboost. I've only level 10 rare repair pulse. I've only level 1 repair box. I've only level 1 rare standard shield. Though, I've level 20 rare big shield, but it can't be used for any fixer as you need a turbo. I've only about 1500 rare parts, which can upgrade just from level 11 to level 20.
If I spend so much resources on a fixer, I won't be able to upgrade weapons for shooter, and playing fixer with lesser skills and poor overboost and poor standard shield doesn't help much.
So, I've to return to my shooter sooner or later. Now, I'll notice that I don't have the rare parts! The game doesn't want you to try different ships without paying. We see the f2p players at youtube at 3k+ infamy, they started the game an year ago.

 

I can see why switching from fixer to anything else is frustrating. I played shooter for the majority, but I was able to switch to speeder easily because it shares most of the slots. I only had to get two yellow items, but that wasn't a problem. Actually, I was stuck low playing shooter and Fixer, but switched to speeder and gained 600 trophies. Basically to switch to another ship you have to plan it weeks in advance.

 

I'm on Mangchi's side on this one...

You guys are right saying that he should have leveled up his Speeder before trying it, but you also do know how much time you need to invest to keep another ship at the same-ish level of your best ship, and then you need to factor in the items too (and pay attention, it's ITEMS, not just weapons).
It's in the devs interest to keep us entertained by the game, and diversity is a key factor in that regard, and keep in mind the op said he even bought a certain number of epic crates, so he's facing this problem even without being f2p.

I've played shooter till now (mk4), but I want to switch to enforcer so I'm now in the sloooow process of levelling the ship and the items up, and doing that requires me to stop upgrading my Shooter's weapons...

And to close this out I'm gonna bring up another flaw in this system: assume he DID level up the Speeder plus the items in order to stay competitive at his level, what if then he didn't like playing that ship? Could you imagine all that time going absolutely wasted? I think I'd quit the game immediately.

 

What if I wasn't an English speaker? Forum is only in English.

I did check out the patch info page/link. It bascially takes you to this forum page :
https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/balancing-changes-on-july-14th.8945/
Before that : https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/patch-notes-v-2-4-were-gonna-need-a-bigger-boat.3256/

I don't see any explanation about your battle rewards being severely cut.

Yeah, I did level it up as much as I could, and bought the highest mark speeder available for my captain level. I'm using mostly max T2-T3 items on the speeder.

And yes, while I was playing fixer, I was setting myself up to eventually play as a speeder, by leveling up red items that I was planning to use as a speeder, and prioritizing talent leveling for speeder.

When there isn't variety, most people will get tired of playing. Punishing players, without explaining, for trying out variety, isn't ideal. You can always pay though, and pay a lot. Some people do, most people will quit. Game is awesome, I wish more people will play, which I think is the best way for Rovio to fix these issues. But unless these issues are fixed, I'm not sure player pool will increase a lot. Chicken / Egg.

 

Matchmaking works.
What most of the people who complain about still don't understand is that it's based on infamy..NOT boat level or weapon loadout.
There are many reasons why people see higher level boats in matchmaking..
Either you're doing better than the higher level..maybe they have only just unlocked that level..maybe they're intentionally dropping infamy or maybe they're trying out a new boat/weapon loadout and are not used to it..hence losing infamy.
Maybe a lower level has fleeted with a higher level but with close infamy.
You see?.. it's the players who are at fault..not matchmaking.
Sure..as a f2p player you will get so far until you hit a wall until you can level up or get better weapons.. I've been there. The choice is either to carry on playing until you do progress or quit.

You don't have to pay to use different boats.. I've used all boats at MK4..if I had a run of losses or if I died quite quickly I changed back to my main boat..then tried the other later.
F2p players should realise that progression will be slow.. you're either in it for the long haul..or you'll get so far and quit.
But this is the generation of.. I want it now..younger people don't have the patience anymore as they're used to instant downloads etc.
And of course there's a paywall.. would it be fair to the paying players..(who are responsible for helping to keep this game going and improve)..to have thousands of f2p players have the same weapons etc..that they have?
You don't need to pay to reach Ace league..you need time..patience and a bit/lot of luck with the Rngesus.

 

That's a moot point..as you do understand English.
I kind of understand your frustration..as to be honest.. there's not a lot of information displayed in game..but as I said..most online games have a forum.. they're the place to go for information and guides/tips.
Anyways..keep at it..it shouldn't take long at all to get back to full rewards..yeah it can get tough for us f2p players..but it is what it is.
Good luck.

 

Biffter,

That's exactly my point. I got my speeder ready as much as I could and wanted to grind it out and progress. But I can't really do that when they give me pitiful battle rewards, can I? So I should be punished for having grinded as a fixer?

Matchmaking is kinda broken. I got matched with Christmas at one point and fortunately he was on my team and he dominated. We were down 1-4, and Christmas single handedly proceeded to take down 3 near-full-health ships and match ended up as a draw.

That's a one off example. But it is kinda broken near mid 2000 infamy level. When I was grinding as a m4 fixer, I sometimes would get 1-2 shot killed. That's pretty demoralizing and many players would wonder why they should continue to play F2P. You shouldn't be killed instantaneously by 1 or 2 shots as you inch your infamy slightly higher. This is easily fixed - If there were a ton more players in the pool, matchmaking can be made a bit more sophisticated, so that there isn't a perception that MM is unfair. Perception is more important than reality. In reality, MM is fair as you said, but it can be perceived as unfair. My point is that, it doesn't have to be.

 

Man I see and kind of agree with your points, but there's a difference between "I want it now" and "I'm gonna grind this game for months to get this one thing, maybe".
I've played lots and lots of different videogames, never really gotten into a mobile game until now and the difference is gigantic... I could tell you a certain number of different takes on how to grant variety in an online multiplayer game (and I mean f2p games with optional transactions like this one), just tell me if you want some examples. I don't mean to be mean (sorry) with this, just wanted to point out how this is not about "I want it now"... of course there always is someone who thinks like that, but don't generalize.


That being said, it's true that if you don't like how the game is structured you can always quit it. The fact here is that I, and i think the OP agrees on this, see so much potential in this game and I'd prefer not to get forced out of it...

 

Yep.. I see your point about matchmaking at the highest level..it MUST be a bit demoralising to grind all that way as a f2p player..and your game is over in seconds.
Maybe they should higher the infamy roof..then you wouldn't be matched against the big players all the time. But then that will cause waiting time problems?
So yeah.. I was talking about lower/mid level infamy matchmaking..sorry if I can across as condescending as I didn't mean to.
I have no right to comment on what it's like for matchmaking at that high a lvl..as I haven't been there.....yet.

Anyways..hope you keep playing and get your rewards back as they were.. you've clearly got skills (unlike a LOT of players) if you've reached that high.
Good luck..
Happy Battling.