Goodbye Shooter

I've mained a Shooter for at least 10 months, but I finally gave it up. Losing was getting old, and the game was beginning to get boring as a result. I lost confidence that the matchmaking system was treating me fairly, so it was either take a break from the game or do something different, so I switched boats. After all that time building up a great shooter I don't have great gear for another boat, but I don't care, it's better than feeling like I am beating my head against the wall.

The last month has seen me reach my all time high infamy with MK5 and then an MK6 upgrade, but I've been barely treading water since, down 500 infamy from my high as of this morning. It's been 3 weeks of rough matchups... and that's just too much. I waited to Captain 42 to upgrade to MK6, had been running mostly T5 rares, couple of T4s, all my battles had MK6's already, and my infamy was only 100 off all time high I figured it was time to upgrade. In retrospect I still feel it was a safe upgrade time but it didn't help the win ratio, at all. What kind of progression game so commonly results in players going backwards with a big upgrade like that? The Devs have to spend some time pondering the situation they've created infamy dropping is purposeful and leveling boats unevenly results in crazy matchups at lower levels, requiring an overly-manipulated matchmaking. IMO just do matchups and issue battle rewards by infamy and after some time everyone will bubble up and down properly.

I honestly I still can't put my finger on what is wrong with the matchmaking. Maybe I'm a bad player... but my kill ratio is higher than almost every boat I look at, and my damage and kills are regularly top 2 in the battles, but I just can't count on my teammates to be effective enough of the time. I still can't believe how many boats still can't issue their infamy in damage. I play in matches from 2200-3300 infamy (via fleeting) and to be quite honest, the matches all feel the same and my effectiveness is about the same... so I'm at a loss what more to do.

I'm switching to Enforcer. I don't know why... I have a lot of great 2 slot weapons I can no longer use, but it is what it is. My single Tesla Shield is only a T2 and I lack some of the common Enforcer weapons like Flare, Carronade, Mine, etc... but I'll make due. So far I'm up 300 infamy from my bottom today, which is a good start... the highest 1 day rise I've had in a month... and it's the first enjoyable session I've had in a long time. I would prefer a 4-weapon slot boat, something that sits between Shooter and Enforcer, but this is ok.

If you are feeling the same, maybe it's time for you to switch boats as well.

 

I did this 1 or 2 months ago and it work well. I went from master league to ace 1 (recently).

 

What infamy are u now?

 

Im in 2800+ now. My infamy droped on the beginning of the season and now slowly recovering my infamy.

 

i was asking envylife but ok

 

Lol, sory

 

i has stuck on 2800 with shooter.. watching ysl and another YouTube-ers tricks with enf i climbed 1000 inf for month.. but its big difference with mk5 and mk6 enf.. with mk5 best way to use blue parts on boat is bandage and turbo.. and with strong bandage u can play agressiv and constantly attack and confuse opponent and go back to heal yourself with bandage..but with enf mk6 if u has strong yellow shield,and strong blue big shield,ur job is protected your teammates.. especially your fixer.. be consistently with him and put yellow shield above him,or if u dont have yellow shield stun with tesla players who attack your fixer..

best combination on mk5: ​

-overboost and shield
-overboost and nitro
blue parts: bandage and turbo

best combination on mk6:
-tesla nitro overboost with bandage and turbo ➡️(play agressiv and confuse opp and make chase you and go back to your teammates and kill that ship who chase you together, another strategy is to make 1or2 opp left the group, left the healer and that healer can't heal all 5 opp ships.. and to that only if u 100% sure that u can escape)

- shield overboost nitro with BIG SHIELD and turbo ➡️(play smart, protect your fixer with shield,be with your team, because u dont bandage..)
the way you play depends on BANDAGE..

and dont put weapons with 2slots in ship..

 

I've been in a 2200-2700 range for as long as I can remember, maybe 2-3 months, only briefly touching 2700, more commonly in the lower part of that range.

Back when I was in Master League I started noticing my opponents would have more Ace League players on their side more often than not. If I was in Ace, they would have been balanced but I had never qualified for Ace League at that point. This was not a feeling, it's something I watched for weeks as I was late Master league. It's only noticeable on the border of leagues due to colors displayed next to player. The result of this is that I could predict the outcome of many of these matches before it started... something that seemed more obvious to me than it was to Matchmaker(tm). I have not seen that behavior since, either having all Ace, or in the lower 2000's I see more balanced Master league players in my matchups. It was frustrating until I could finally jump over 2k, and stay over 2k, which happened in just a few days to establish that stability.

Some of that odd behavior makes me think that in addition to current infamy and MK level, Matchmaker(tm) uses additional algorithms to put teams together that results in unexpected behaviors like streaks. For example, the Devs have already confirmed that they take into account streaks when distributing 10 players to each side. I also think they try to distribute players based on their effectiveness to balance matches as well, rather than being random as it should. The more matchmaking manipulations in use, the more unintended consequences we will get, which for me has been frustration building for months.

 

Lol

Source?

 

Dang son!

 

Odd, With the constant yellow nerfs if I continue in the Bay I'll be switching to the beloved Shooter with full mortars and torps.

 

It says WITHOUT or am I missing something here?

 

Enforcer is easier. Even after tesla shield rework with flares. It's an easier boat. If u have 2 tesla shields. U will be carving. I switched for 5 games to help guild recently. Took same weapons off my defender. Put them on enforcer. Won 5 straight. All with 10k or more damage. Was easy. U should see an improvement. Especially with how quickly it targets every ship.

Happy hunting

 

Yes I wonder cause yesterday I got a 16 win streak and then afterwards I went down quickly. I should have stopped at the end of teh streak but infamy goes up and down. Sometimes I get 10 loss streaks as well. Matchmaking in master definately isnt as uniform as in ace, u often get warrior or ace guys in ur battles.

 

Who is on which team is what makes a match balanced or unbalanced, more so than who are the 10 players in the match. For example, yesterday I had a 2500 infamy MK1 Enforcer on my team, who suicided and was 1-shot, obviously. We lost being effectively 4v5, but considering we put up a good fight, had that suicider been put on the other team it was a guaranteed win. That particular incident reflects both of the problems the Devs are trying to address using Matchmaker(tm), but it is absolutely the wrong approach. Take the incentives out of seal clubbing and level up all boats at once all the problems magically disappear.

Just the past two days, for the first time in months, I've been seeing Warriors in my battles. Warriors at 2500 infamy!? Obviously some sandbagging/seal clubbing going on. I've proposed a hard infamy floor, and infamy calculated by simple moving average to subvert the instant gratification the seal clubbers get from quickly dropping infamy and then regaining it at bigger average rewards than being actually competitive every match. For the life of me I just don't understand why the obvious solutions are being ignored by the devs.

 

Enforcer is hard for me since RNG has not given me decent Enforcer meta items. I have a single T2 Epic Tesla so I have no good way to do close combat, which is commonly done with a Flare, and I only have a single Epic Flare. With only 1-slot items, combat from afar is also limited as I've received no Epic Sniper to date. Everyone at 2500+ has some Rare, mostly Epic, and Legendaries sprinkled in, and I'm still waiting for a Legendary. I have T5 Rare canons so I'm fine.

I was just lamenting with a Fixer buddy who just got his MK6 Fixer that he now has the same number of red slot points as Enforcer, and is regularly out-damaging his gun boats (which tells you about matchmaking and ineffective teammates). That being said, Enforcer can still work, I just have to be creative in the combinations of items being used, and run the boat differently. I've already set a new season high with Enforcer, which is a positive.

 

To followup, I was doing good for 4 days with Enforcer, slightly up in infamy, then things started going south. Ineffective teams for prolonged periods was frustrating. After going 2 of 18 at one point, being at my lowest infamy in months, I was getting zero stars and near worthless battle rewards far more frequently than I'm used to. So, I decided to go with the flow; If I'm going to lose I may as well lose with decent rewards with the Shooter.

It went as expected... losses continued for a time, rewards were up 200% in those losses, average 1 star per loss because I can better impact a match when my teammates are vomiting all over themselves (more guns, more health). When losses stabilized (took a day at least) I was back to 50/50 matches, lots of triple, quadruple, even a pentakill match, and yet my infamy is still not back to what it was with Enforcer, and now I'm back to where I started when I punted Shooter for Enforcer.

Look, we could debate all day about why infamy can be stable for a week, and then suddenly get blown out in matches for a couple days... then dominate matches for a couple more days. It still feels to me like there is something extra being fed into matchmaking that is causing this wild behavior. I originally suspected it could be around season end/begin but I don't think that's it. I'm still seeing most of my matches with 1 or 2 Shooters dealing less than their infamy which is ridiculous... that's like 2 shots, and they have 5 guns. No excuse!

I'll go back to Enforcer soon, but I have to regain confidence that me stepping away from Shooter will result in reliable Shooters in my matches. So far, I have little confidence in that. My boat feels dominant at my infamy but it's definitely not translating to wins.

 

I've noticed changes in match difficulty depending on what time of day I play. If I get up in the mornings, seems like I get matched more with players not in the U.S. which from my experiences have been easier matches. Might be due to them being sleepy or less whales in the game, etc. On the contrary when I play after work at 5pm I almost always go on a losing streak before getting back into the rhythm. Either way I think its better to play a lot of games at once and play games with 1 other guy you play well with. It takes a few games sometimes to get warmed up and in the correct mindset. Everyone isn't 100% every game so keep that in mind as well.