The Economics of Infamy

My observations on infamy. Correct me if I'm wrong, @Miika.

Infamy is generated by noob players (Player A) who fight against bots for their first few games. Once they stop playing against bots and against real players, (Player B), say Player A loses. Player A goes back to fighting bots until more infamy is created out of thin air. Player B loses against Player C, who in turn, loses against Player D. This way, infamy gets moved up to the Nightmare League. Every time I win a game, the infamy I gain was created for me at some time by a noob fighting bots.

If infamy wasn't generated by noobs fighting bots, the highest infamy would be much lower, and many players would be in the negative infamy range. When more players join, more "free" infamy is given out, and therefore the "value" of an infamy point drops down. I remember on the old forums, user @Emilia shared a screenshot from early, early Battle Bay, when the population was abysmal. She was in the top 50 with 2.4k infamy (correct me if I remember wrong).

Nightmare League players reset to 4k every season to prevent them from getting too high, or else matchmaking speed would be very long. This also counters the rapidly growing population. You may notice that the first week of every season is a lot harder. That is because Pro-Nightmare players and Noob-Nightmare players alike drop down to 4k. The Pro-Pros beat the Noob-Pros, and the Noob-Pros match with Ace players, and so on, until infamy is redistributed upwards again to the point where Nightmare players reach their optimal rank.

The reason that the Devs changed the 3.5k infamy requirement for Nightmare league to 4k, is because of the massive increase in players. Just like a dollar isn't as worth much as it used to be 50 years ago, 3.5k infamy just wasn't worth the same as 3.5k when they first introduced seasonal leagues. With further population increases, it is not unlikely that at some point in time Nightmare will take 4.5k to get into.

Spoiler: Too Long; Didn't Read

The higher the population of Battle Bay, the easier it is to gain Infamy.

 

Your post is accurate, and the more players join, the more condensed the ladder will be, which is why there are now Mk4 at and below 1k infamy. When I joined I was at 1k infamy as a Mk2 (maybe 4 months ago). At the rate the community is grown, I honestly think the infamy ladder needs a bigger shift, with Nightmare league starting at around 6k - 8k. People may think that is extreme, but it now takes about an hour to hit a wall of mk4 players as a brand new player. There is no 'early progression' to even get into the game like there was when I started.

 

Why do we even require a reset? The matchmaking matches you based on infamy but if it can't find anybody close to your level it matches you with much lower players anyways

Miika claims it exists to give all players an equal chance to reach the too which makes no sense as only nightmares are reset

Can some nightmare please explain that?.

 

In other leagues you are trying to progress. If you are one win off Ace III (like I am), and your infamy gets reset, you're gonna get PISSED off, as you're now a LONG way away from getting back there. In Nightmare league you have no where to progress to. The only thing to do in Nightmare is to fight for the top spot. Hence why this is only enabled for Nightmare players.

 

If we didn't have a reset, we would see players with 6-7k infamy. Note how people say matchmaking is bad now, imagine how it would be if there were a handful of 6k players. It would be hard to find a game, to the point where the matchmaker places a single 6k player in a team of 3k's, against high 4k players. Doubtless this is not ideal.

Furthermore, the reset does affect everyone, though on paper it only affects Nightmare players. Keep in mind that "Noob Nightmare" players feed "Pro Nightmare" players infamy they receive from Ace players. You yourself might notice that you break infamy records during the second week of every season, while the first week is a lot harder than normal. This is mathematically normal.

 

As the ladder condenses, more lower leagues should appear as well. Jumping from 3500 to 3800 is not the same as jumping from 1500 to 1800. Believe it or not, the second one is much harder, since a massive new wave of players is making their way through the ladder and pushing up the skills/equipment required to break certain infamy levels. And the lower the infamy, the lower the rewards. So the growth rate now is much lower than when the game first launched. This is problematic as to fix infamy unbalance new players should be helped climbing the ladder, not the contrary.

Eaiser progression should encourage lower levels, while new content shoudl engage veterans

 

I might be wrong but resetting the infamy numbers doesn't really reset your skills or build back to 4k level does it?. You don't have actual 4k level players at that infamy, you have players who are worth 6k-8k worth of skills being forced down into 4k level in name.

Right now you have 4k players being matched against 3k players, problem is some of these players are 4k only in name where some might be worth 5k and some 6k.

This might be worse than the matchmaking you believe might happen cause atleast in that scenario, you'll have players being matched based on their true worth. I'm not sure if the matchmaking understands a player's true worth, all it can see are their numbers and all the numbers are reset to 4k every season.

The current matchmaking matches players assuming that they are all their respective reset 4k values which may or may not be their true worth. The algorithm might have no idea whether they are 6k level players or 5k level players. Do you really believe this is more ideal than matching players for their true value?.

 

Oooh

 

You can fight for the top spot without the reset can you not? Also, the reset is probably very annoying for the nightmares too.

 

I bellieve I do not quirlte understand the infamy problem, it would be very nice if somebody enlightens me regarding this.

We need the reset cause otherwise we'd have 6k players being matched with 3k ones, isn't that exactly what's happening right now?. Only difference is the numbers claim they are 4k instead.

Do we need this system merely to psychologically fool out own teammates that they are up against real 4k players merely so that they won't give up before the game even begins?

 

and it works in high league and low league.
i jump to 716 infamy with my reroll mk1 (yes it's a fucking good start) and now at around 600 infamy i met mk5-mk4 with 800 infamy. having this issue in high league is a problem but it's "endgame" so its seems more normal.

but in low league there is more and more high player each day.
2 big reason
=> floating
=> bad player
=> except perhaps for Top3 the reward of league is totally useless (even in first league)
why? in fact the 3K infamy range is the worse...you can encounter 4K infamy people with full leg/t5rare/t4 epic, things lke this, so no interest... i'm happy with my enforcer staying at 2,4K infamy...

so finally you got high player at low infamy crushing lowbies/starting player, and at high infamy big player crushing lower. In fact just the middle range of infamy is really fair

 

Exactly this. But according to the data, "everything is awesome?"

@Miika, @Zeus can I suggest you start a new account and experience the game again around 700 inf as a new player?
Or even the mid 3000s as a non whale, post global launch player..? It aint pretty...

 

It almost appears as if they are deliberately trying to restrain the player base cause if it underwent a rapid increase then the maintainence and running cost goes up like a rocket, besides, it doesn't appear that rovio is taking bb seriously considering that a majority of the ads played by them are off angry birds so I doubt they'd agree to upgrade the servers to accommodate all the players anyways. Ofc all this is just my opinion and not fact.

 

Season end is hardest for me, i drop at lot during that time.

 

I tried with my second account and holy **** do people have lot of epics at 300 infamy

 

Season end and start is a bad time for all decent players, either you have players furiously trying hard to hit max infamy or you have players not trying at all and for.

I suppose of I stopped playing at all at the beginning and end and only play in between, we might actually relieve ourselves of half the frustration.

 

According nightmare is a strong word 4500 !!!! It's obvious ROVIO

 

True story. Started a few weeks ago, I've been running into people with (often multiple and/or T2-4) epics since my 10th match or so.

 

Interesting arguments. Keep in mind that because the infamy resets for Nightmare players, EVERYONE else loses infamy as well, as infamy is redistributed upwards. So when you say "6k players being matched with 3k ones" remember that because the reset affects all players, realistically you mean 6k players being matched with 4.5k players (keeping in mind the concept of "true" infamy and "shown" infamy.

Without a reset, infamy would range up to 7k. Non-Nightmare league players will also find that their infamy skyrockets though. However keep in mind that this bigger range of infamy to create matches from means that matchmaking would take longer to create a game. I remember how shitty the game was for me right before global launch (I was at an average of 3.8k) and it took me over a minute to find a game, when I just wanted to play.

Sure matchmaking isn't perfect, but I stand by my statement when I say it's only bad in the first week of every season, as it "recalculates" a player's optimal level.

On a sidenote, it is easier now to reach Nightmare league than ever before. This is because of population increases. Top players are breaking infamy records regularly. This season, over 200 players graduated to Nightmare league, which is an insane amount, as well as a new record.

I actually made a baby account about 4 seasons ago, and I hit 1.2k with my little mk1 ship. I was still at lvl 3. Though this could be attributed to game sense developed via 10k battles on my main account, that it would not accurately portray the experiences that a "truly" new player would experience. At the same time it's not a good argument to put towards the devs, as they could probably do very well on a new account.

I appreciate the feedback you and other "lower" players give on the forums because it lets us experience things objectively.

 

I agree, you are completely right, however I believe that the current matchmaking algorithm works in such a manner that if it can not find somebody of the right infamy range, it just picks somebody bigger or lower (We occasionally have a range of 1k infamy in a match sometimes).

Therefore, theoretically speaking, it shouldn't have any effect in matchmaking at all if the infamy range is well spread out, it's like you said, the value of infamy would decrease and it'd be easier to climb higher.

THAT is exactly what we want for the newbies. Also, we do get more and more nightmares every season but wouldn't more people hitting an infamy wall only make it worse for the new players?.

Please take in mind that while players having to fight harder to earn every bit of infamy they have isn't bad if the aesthetic value of infamy increased, it will still be a huge hurdle for them cause players are rewarded based on their infamy league and not by how hard they had to fight to get there. Can a lvl 29 player save up enough gold for a rare item within a week of he was in warrior or lower?.

As for your point about you new account, I heard from somebody within the forums that you only start getting real human players from lvl 5, you are a lvl 3 you say, are you sure you were fighting Hoomans?.