Literally no chance to win

We know this.. But maybe it should be based upon the ships as well.. I had me being the only mk3 on my team today, the rest were 1 and 2. And they had 2 fixers and all mk3s and we had none. That's just ridiculous.. And then instead of going after the fixers like people should in that situation no one does and we all die in the first 60 seconds..

 

You say "stabilizes to 50%" like it fluctuates wildly!! Going from 55% to 50% over 10 games, 100 games, 1000 games, etc. is not a "fluctuation." It's a CONSTANT.

As I stated, and you agreed with, infamy is not about skill. Then STOP having infamy be the rating system in this game. Who wants to play a game if skill has little to no value in it?

You admit the goal is to keep everyone near 50%. You admit infamy is not about skill.

Knowing those two things, it means that the current MM system is purely based on carefully constrained and planned matches that ensures skill level plays little part in the ultimate outcome of the game over time.

People go up in infamy and find a new "sweet spot" only because they've reached the limits of the weapons, ships, and YOUR matchmaking. Your matchmaking is the thing that is causing people to plateau in a given infamy level. Too high above 50%, here are some ships two levels above you. Too low below 50%, here are some noobs to battle with.

You've admitted this and yet you continue to argue with me.

Why?

Thread after thread from actual players say the same thing. At some point, you'll listen instead of argue, right?

 

Gahd dayum its BECAUSE that guy chose to team up with a low infamy player that you got that match up, its his fault, not the game's. he did better than you anyway.

P.s This matchmaking discussion is moot anyway, mika knows he's right about MMing being fair but he still hasn't a said a single thing about change in the AMOUNT of infamy lost depending on performance which would actually make infamy more of a show of skill.

 

^ MM is certainly "fair" if you're strictly looking at how even each total team is. In that, they do a decent job at matching up similar teams.

And agree with your second point. The only way to actually have skill matter is to have a progressive scoring infamy system.

 

Dude, just stop. Miika did not argue with you. Miika explained how the system works, something you keep failing to understand. Skill playes a big part in matchmaking, indirectly, via infamy. It's your gear and skill combined that decide how well you do in battles, and thus how high you can climb the ladder. If you want a 100% gear based matchup so that infamy is a 100% skill based ranking: that's not going to happen. That would be very bad for the game.

 

Perhaps "argue" wasn't the right word by me. And I fully understand how MM works. I continually say that MM by itself is fine for what the game is trying to go for.

My point is that I don't think it's a good way to match people in general. I think this game will limit its potential by "forcing" people into wins and losses by matching them against ships and weapons way higher or lower than they are.

Because the goal of MM is to get everyone to 50%, your skill will make little difference in the long run because if you do better than you're "supposed to" (i.e., >57% win or so), you will promptly be matched against players who are running gear way stronger than you. And while in a 1:1 setting, your skill could win that matchup, you simply can't in a 5 v 5 setting where the weakest link is easily exposed.

Why would a system based on infamy (scored progressively) AND ship/weapon strength be a bad thing? What's the rationale?

 

SharkTank said...
"Who wants to play a game if skill has little to no value in it?"

In my opinion, this is the type of game people play to burn the uneventful 10 minute commute on the subway. It's not really supposed to be this major league everyone-is-always-super-serious-because-if-they-lose-the-world-as-we-know-it-ceases-to-exist kind of game. (That title wound up being a little more verbose than I thought it would be.) To be honest, if this game's focus moved on from being a casual game and went too far into the competitive realm, I would probably lose interest. I'm not the only one who feels that way, am I?

Onward! To drop my 2 Lincolns on the infamy kerfuffle, especially since no one asked. :>

This debate seems be split into the simple "Yay or Nay" categories. That's not very innovative. Why not put forward a composite suggestion where infamy is still weighted along with other basic factors? I'm not saying make it overly complex and weight everything from the types of weapons to the types of crew talents, not at all, I'm just saying make some very rudimentary additions to have work in tandem with infamy. Here's my idea:

•Keep infamy.
This is definitely an important tool in the game in order to narrow the pool MM will choose from. It brings order to what would otherwise be complete chaos. Imagine that squad being a regular sight, only their not in squads anymore. That is what it would be like without infamy. Edited to add: MM by boat level only won't work either. What if I'm not good enough for the other ships in my class? What if I just can't "GitGud"? I don't want to trap myself in a frustrating tier I can't compete with before I'm ready. This is another example of how important infamy is.

•Add weight to class type.
As has already been stated earlier in this thread, there are problems with there being 2 Fixers on one team while having none on the other. This is so extremely rare (from my experience only) that I already believe that this is -- in some form or another -- already in place. I say this because I got into quite a few matches where team 1 consisted of 4 Shooters, 1 Enforcer. Team 2 consisted of 4 Shooters 1 Speeder. Another than had 3 Defenders 1 Fixer, 1 Shooter. The other having 2 Defenders, 1 Fixer, 2 Shooters. These matches don't seem all too rare. That gives me the impression that even as it is, it isn't only infamy it concerns itself with. It works in the confines of what is in the pool and tries its best. The others don't seem common (like the 2 Fixers on team 1 and none on team 2 issue) enough to argue the opposite; those feel more like flukes. I mean, it can't be perfect...

•Add weight to boat level.
I do believe this is a sound argument. I don't say I condone throwing a match if the matchmaking is not in my favor, but I definitely agree this is a bit of a problem. As someone who only has MK II ships, being unevenly matched against ships with more HP, more potential DPS, or otherwise more slots to utilize, seems a little unfair. There are some matches where higher level shooters (I've seen as high as an MK IV) are being paired against lower level shooters. Let's face it, their rate of fire is higher than our team as a whole is. That can be a little unfair. I understand that the transition phase for tiers is unavoidable, but you can mitigate the damage by at least getting MM to try and pool the 2 MK IVs in separate teams rather than putting them together. This problem doesn't seem too insanely prevalent either though, I'm not completely convinced there isn't at least something along these lines in place either. Whether it is or isn't, it wouldn't hurt to improve it.

•Do NOT add weight to weapon level, or types of weapons, or crew talents, or player level etc.. That would be overdoing it and probably only drag out MM times for only a miniscule return (if any) on actual team balance.

Here's the crap I threw together. Let's see if it sticks. *plays generic laugh track* No? Tough crowd.

TL;DR: In short, matchmaking does need infamy along with a few other factors to be effective. Removing infamy would only cause problems. Besides, infamy isn't even the real problem here. In essence, I just agreed with SharkTanks final sentence in his last post:

"Why would a system based on infamy (scored progressively) AND ship/weapon strength be a bad thing? What's the rationale?"

I forgot who said it, and I'm too lazy to look back, but I'd say the best suggestion in this thread so far is having separate infamy for each ship. I'm terrible with Defender and I'd like to get used to it while not punishing people by using it at my current infamy level.

I don't mind being wrong as much as I would hate it if I spent time writing that suggestion to find out that's how MM works right now...

Alright, that's all I got. Ravage me.

 

Different infamy for each ship is actually a really nice suggestion!

 

So you would look at this matchmaking and quit right? This is what could actually happen if you try.

 

lol that's not to bad of a match up

 

Lol I get nervous whenever the other team has one fixer and I have none even

 

That actually is a pretty bad matchup. Triple-Shooter-Double-Fixer is never fun to fight. From the look of the game-end stats, I'm guessing neither of the Fixers could get any serious healing off since neither of them even got a star. The one at the bottom probably made a bad mistake and died early, while his fleet partner did less than 1k damage. I'm guessing they stuck together and both got caught out in the open at the same time. Then the match ended up being a 5v3.

Unless there was a serious gear difference, that match should have gone the other way, but these guys in the fleet were totally not getting it done.

 

The one at the bottom died early and then two of the shooters separated from the healer and an mk5 and we took out the shooters then focus fired on the mk5 and then hit the last healer. Just was trying to run instead of shoot I guess.

 

Triple-shooter-double fixer can be also easy to fight if the full-shooter team is well coordinated. If they focus their fire on one shooter, the fixers can't usually keep it alive and the battle is soon 5v4. If 2 out of 4 are fixers, they don't have serious firepower to beat the another team. The situation sounds difficult but it's not impossible. As fixer I don't like that kind of setups in my team. That's one problem in matchmaking. I don't know why can't they simply change places of one fixer and one shooter. Sometimes there are three fixers vs. no fixers and I have heard about teams with four fixers against no fixers (that team is pretty hard to sink already).

 

Just when I thought my day on the bay couldn't get any worse lol. Ggrrrrr