[Poll] Seal clubbing and Infamy regulation against rules of fair play

Months ago an update includes the infamy penalty. A tool to punish "seal clubbing". Players who lose over 800 infamy points from their all time best (actual rule unknown) are punished and get low rewards unless they stay within the 800 points range.
Today the forum flourishes with complains about uncontrolled infamy drop and infamy regulation.

Players admit on the forum that to avoid the infamy penalty, they “regulate”, purposely lose infamy to avoid the penalty. Resulting in unfair behaviors.

Infamy regulation is as bad a seal clubbing. It is against the RULES OF FAIR PLAY published by Grim on March 3sd, could be classified as “Win trading” and risk the ban.
Every players aware of the Infamy drop penalty are most likely to play unfairly to avoid the penalty.

It has been said on the forum as well that because of the new guild quests, and the new distribution of power (more legendaries ….) infamy is much less stable than before, and players more likely to suffer the penalty unfairly.


People are proposing solutions, to fix both issues, and it will happen at some point (infamy floor, wider infamy range penalty, reset of Infamy top …). But today, the game is broken.

Every time I suspect awkward behaviors, like a boat rushing alone, or dealing minimum damages for their setup, I check their profiles. And often I see their Infamy very close to their season top, and can’t help but think that they are regulating infamy, loosing purposely, and breaking the rule of fair play. It’s not fun.

As well, I don’t want to blame them, I know the penalty is arch and unfair, but they screw my hope of getting myself away from penalty.

Stop punishing fair players and allowing unfair behavior. Until a solution is accepted, please get rid of the penalty.


PS: I’m personally victim of the Seal Clubbing penalty even though I played fairly. One month ago, when I was over my top, I had a run of many lucky wins and made +1k infamy in a couple hours, then dropped back to my average. I cannot win it back, I get little rewards, I cannot train my crew or evolve my gear because I’m low on sugar. The game got sour. (pun)

 

Just a side note but the 800 is not calculated from their all time best infamy, as stated by Miika here:

 

I know more than a few players that stopped to lose on purpose to carry guildmates to higher infamy because the punishment
It's not a perfect system, but I don't think it'd be good to do not have it

 

Perspective is always interesting. From my perspective I think it's useless. It certainly didn't stop me from "regulating my infamy" nor could it have. In fact, as long as I was keeping my own infamy in sensible bounds then the penalty was no penalty at all. So what if I had to fight at my high-mark and win a few? My high-mark was a comfortable margin within my actual capabilities. Now that I no longer regulate my own infamy the seal-clubbing rule is my #1 problem and it's the most likely reason I'll quit Battle Bay. Now, my high-water mark represents the peak of a lucky upswing. It is not even remotely a comfortable place to fight at. Being matched at that level and told to win consistently is simply stupid.

Because of this rule I play a lot less than I would otherwise. I can no longer treat this game as even remotely casual. I'm either able to play at or near peak performance or else I need to play a different game and come back to Battle Bay when I'm rested/whatever. They have given me a roughly 800 point window to work with. Just regular infamy fluctuations account for 550 points of that. So I have an actual window of 250 infamy to work with. That is no margin at all when I'm playing at the top of my infamy curve.

Although I understand why they are keeping the details close to the vest, it only adds insult to injury that there is such an incredibly harsh penalty out there and no real way to know how it is triggered. I just treat the penalty as a permaban. If I get hit with it I'll uninstall and find a new game.

 

I've gotta go with it being unfair, and needs fixed. I've had guild captains that I've seen railed with this punishment. We hold a very high opinion of always doing our best in every battle. I know for a fact my men aren't clubbers, but still a few have hit this limit and all it does, is add to the low morale, already induced by a number of other in game factors. Definately needs a fix, I can only cheer up my mates to a point and hopelessly tell them, they will make it through...

 

that's a horrible idea they dabble with. That puts their mate at severe risk of falling back to his normal infamy, thus invoking the curse lol

 

What is seal clubbing?

 

Purposely losing matches to lower their infamy for easier match-ups.

 

Oh thanks!

 

A formula rovio developed to discourage people from tanking infamy. When it was developed, it was a great idea. It takes all rewards. But in recent updates, it became a hindrance, they now pair you with similar ships regardless of infamy. So technically, the clubbers are no longer relevant. Only people that have been stricken with an infamy curse

 

*laugh* Yeah although some context is always relevant. The "seals" that I clubbed were only 2 and 3 marks above me rather than 4 or 5. That's not exactly what the phrase "seal clubbing" conjures up

 

I agree with you. Actually I believe that tanking is always a horrible Idea.

 

Really? That is obviously true from a community standpoint, but from a personal standpoint me keeping my infamy down to some manageable level until I could deal with the M5/6 wall worked out quite well. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it that right now I'm in a place where I can just play as hard as I can and the predictable things happen. But if I ever saw the infamy system do what it did back when I was new you can bet I'd be right back to tanking again.

 

I never have been punished by this rule and I’ve never had to regulate my infamy. I can see why some people hate the seal clubbing penalty though. If you try your best on each round (I do that) you don’t really have to worry as much about it

 

Sometimes I have the same problem. Not a crazy drop like -500 or anything though, so good luck getting back up

 

Heh, now that's motivation.

TheAntisnipe: 2487 / 2785
SnappleBC: 2120 / 2336

Heh, you're within reaching range now.

 

I fear I didn't manage to make my point... can I try again?

Infamy penalty was implanted to counter infamy regulation (loosing infamy purposely) and to ameliorate match making (players of similar power together).

Yet Infamy penalty forces infamy regulation to avoid the penalty (loosing infamy purposely) , which forces players to not play to their fullest (better ship and skills playing in lower rank).

It just doesn't work to me.

Of course a player focusing on one boat, one setup, and fleeting with always similarly skilled player might never have to worry getting the penalty.

But players who like to play different boats, try different weapons, fleet with different friends... all might have their infamy go up and down out of 800 range (or whatever is the actual rule) and suffer the penalty when playing fair.

Why not giving it up already?