Misconceptions about Matchmaking

I got enough flares to build at least 2 epics in the last 6 months. I just started using it around that time and got a t5 epic and a legendary now from achievement. I also got a t5 epic OB and enough dups to get to t5 again now. I was preparing for the HTDM but seem like it’s cancelled now. Funny thing about OB was I was stuck on T2 for so long I decided to build a rare one.

How do you get epic power cells? I don’t want to just get 40-60 a month depending on how lucky I get in raffles. That’s clearly not enough for an ACE/NM player. I knew a player quit around December with 58k battles because he was always waiting for epic cells. Doesn’t matter what he did, I can’t get power cells in an adequate amount. That was truly frustrating.

 

Well there is no guarantees, but using all of the below, with a little luck, the cells add up over time:

• https://forum.battlebay.net/threads/power-cells-tip.30 thread primarily talks about scrapping leveled up rares.
• The new 100k boxes give occasional Epic Cells, as well as scrapping the uncommon items you get from the boxes.
• Guild Raffles, of course
• Scrapping unwanted Epics

All of the above require a lot of resources and effort. I regularly hold about 100 epic cells waiting for dups that never seem to come and then when it overflows over 100 I give in and level up a secondary item. Mind you it's not very often, but dups arrive even less often. All the items I don't use all that often, if ever, continue to rain down on me like Tesla Shields, Mines, Carronades, and all kinds of torps and mortars. I keep scrapping, and I still have enough on hand to build 1-2 T5E's. Item RNG has absolutely no balance in this game for me, and it's immensely frustrating. That's why cells are a secondary issue.. need dups before worrying about evolutions. And that also means no secondary boats for me... why waste precious cells on a secondary boat when I still can't finish my primary.

And then there's matchmaking, a perpetual thorn in everyone's side where one would envision "if I just had all my dups and enough cells to build them, then I can become OP like others and not care about matchmaking as much." Such a pipe dream.

 

Well I play all 6 ships that don’t require pieces to level up. That means that I have to level up a ton of items. Some items are adequate with rare like nitro but mostly I need at least T4 epic to be competitive, especially red & green items. I still can’t t5 my repair bolt because of this. Some will say that T4 and T5 epic are not that much difference but it does in the long run. I am often weaker than the people in my battles in terms of GS and they are in the same infamy range. If I have to play with 1 ship, I’ll probably quit the game.

 

The game was designed to focus on a single ship. It was never a good design, and Power Cells are the proof of this intention.

 

The game has never designed to focus on a single ship. The lack of resources for many players playing one or 2 ships. The worst consequence of that is there have been that many YouTubers. The most famous YouTuber in this game is Porthos and he quit more than a year ago. That’s saying a lot.

 

I disagree, based on one simple fact: I'm going into my 3rd year in this game without being able to fill out the ONE ship I've been focusing on for 2 years with a full T5E loadout. If the game was designed for players to focus on multiple ships, they would have made item dups, resources, and cells more plentiful. That's the whole irony of the HCTDM implementation. This point is inarguable ... unless you're talking P2W.

 

This game is broken. Why the fuck i matching up with 331!!! rated ship on rated battle???

 

Likely a player in the Infamy tanking penalty that was rated as high as you at some point in time in the past. So it doesn't mean they are lesser, more than likely a flawed ranking. The proof that it's a flawed rating is the fact that they are in your battle. Not sure why Rovio doesn't fix that flaw.

 

They are actually lesser. If they just tanked previously then they could go up to 3000 if they try hard. But staying under 500 because of penalty?? Meh I don't bite. It proves he is just dum player

 

the problem is that he is tanking his infamy and he has no goal to win the game. I play to win, tryhard and do not want to lose my infamy, but I lose, because of him and those like him who have no goal to win. I have been playing for a long time and noticed that developers want to make the game more “fun”, but losing games again and again because of stupid people is not “fun”, I just get angry every game and lose my infamy.

Before, the game was different, better than now because if you played well, you won, the rating matched your ship. What do we have now? - lvl 50 ships at 1200 infamy and 3k playing with 500 - sounds like a joke, April 1st has already passed, please fix this, thank you.

 

At this point in the game being low Infamy isn't even a measure of skill... it's a measure of tolerance to losses. Once I was in a streak of 38 out of 40 losses; a loss of 800 Infamy in a matter of 24 hours... I kept at it just trying to see if the matches would eventually start putting me on better teams (the devs have acknowledged some matchmaking criteria that does so). I was trying to win every match, I was frustrated, but I was curious. Did I become 800 Infamy less skilled in a matter of hours? Of course not. I should have walked away... and I did several times, but the bad luck was still there... just a LOT of it.

In the case above, if a true 3000 Infamy player is in 3000 Infamy matches they would be winning at a 50% rate as they are at their stasis point. If that same player is put 300 Infamy and still in 3000 Infamy matches, it's not even possible for them to win more than 50% unless their skill/items increased to the point where they are now NML class. It's a catch-22. Rovio may have some magic formulas that bypass this obvious flaw in the Infamy tanking system, but I've yet to see anyone mention what allows a 300 Infamy player in 3000 infamy matches to get back up to where they belong.

 

Do you know that for a fact? If a player is purposefully tanking their Infamy, they should be reported and dealt with.

Unfortunately the "dealt with" part on Rovio's side involves putting that player back in higher level matches, which is a punishment to their teammates. This is yet another reason why the implementation of that taking penalty is highly flawed.

 

Your 331 infamy player did better than their 700 infamy player .. and a 2k player on your team.

S/he is not why you lost. It likely had more to do with fixers trying to be damage dealers rather than fixing .. or going into ranked matches without a good fleetmate.

But, yeah .. To avoid the appearance of unfairness, they should stop listing the infamy of players in the tanking penalty .. Instead they should show the infamy used in the MM formula (or simply show three red "x"s) to everyone else but the penalized player.

This misconception gives players something to blame for their losses rather than reexamining their loadout/strategy for ways to improve.

 

I still see that putting a 300 Infamy player in 3000 Infamy battle is a problem though. The player is either 300 or 3000. Rovio needs to choose. If it's 3000 then it's obvious that Infamy floors should be implemented. If it's 300, then put them in 300 Infamy matches. This have your cake and eat it to approach leads to all kinds of issues, both actual and perceived.

 

*Too lazy to edit down the train of thought post*


With an infamy floor, that player would probably be bottomed out around 2400 infamy .. so the teams would be the same, but it would appear more fair.

The difference with a matching floor (i.e., the current system) is that if a player floats matches, they risk losing their league rewards .. but it appears less fair with wider infamy ranges.


The actual issue with player infamy struggles is an unwillingness or inability to adapt to changes in the game.

Spoiler: More

What changed?
Buffs and nerfs have something to do with it - mortars and cannon combos were buffed while rail guns, snipers, and firebombs were nerfed (in relation to other weapons or outright) ..

The availability of new ships, items, and event perks also changed the balance of power. This meta shift required different strategies.

The effect:
Defenders have long been the weakest ships in ranked. But Shooters, once among the strongest of ships, are now among the weakest (without a dedicated fixer).

Rushing opponents, unloading on them, nitro escaping to repair for 15 seconds (rinse and repeat) became the dominant strategy over conserving health and refining your accuracy at maximum range. Obviously, shooters are less than ideal for this type of game.

Although, shooters still do well in damage-for-coins, multi-life events.

1) Unwilling to adapt
Some players continued grinding ranked with their weakened Shooters (probably without realizing how much weaker they were).

Because of the matching floor, they were matched based on some percentage of their career high .. and they kept losing infamy .. that is one reason why I don't agree with the use of any type of floor.

Without a floor, players would have lost several hundred infamy (to represent the loss of ship/item power) but their infamy would have stabilized at that point.


2) (More likely) Players were unable to adapt.
Items:
It can take 2-3+ years to collect 6 epic duplicates of an item .. if players failed to save nitros or repair items, they weren't able to adapt to the changes. Obviously, the new items are out of their reach. And, most weaker 3-slot rare versions of items are less than comparable but still take over a year to collect a full set.

No-Life Grinding:
The new ships take an exorbitant amount of time to level to a competitive level - so that precludes all but the most dedicated grinders and largest spenders.

Likewise, event perks drastically affect the effectiveness of weapons .. if you're unable/unwilling to grind 8+ hours a day during events or buy coins, then you're not going to be able to catch up (much less keep up).

Long story short -
While I don't agree with the floors, they aren't the reason why players are struggling with infamy.

I suppose I should also mention --
Presumably, a 300 infamy player matched at 2400 infamy (with the floor) wouldn't be matched at 3400 infamy once they regained 1000 of their lost infamy .. they would continue to be matched at 2400 until their actual infamy surpasses that point.

Without a floor, they would likely be stuck at 14-1500 infamy until they chose (or were able) to adapt to the new meta.

Anywho .. as I've said before, the better way to protect new players would be to allow them to play in a training league until they have the items and ship levels to compete with other players .. which would allow for the removal of floors. (Another reason why rares should have a higher drop rate and 4 perk slots - to speed this process).

*Although they would also have to reexamine ranked match rewards, remove all infamy considerations from events/casual MM formulas, and perhaps even add a league modifier to guild rivalries to ensure there is absolutely no benefit for intentionally tanking infamy.

 

Another problem with the game is the events.

I don't think it is a good idea to allow players to get more than 1 legendary perk per event.

Sure they could still battle for coins and get ship peices and perks, but only 1 legendary per event.

With some events (especially the ones with 600 coins/perk) players can get 4 legendary perks.

This is just crazy and unnecessary.

 

I think what @envylife meant about the floor was for MM. If someone peaks out at 3000, when they’ve been losing, MM should match them with others base on the floor, not the peak infamy where they don’t belong yet. For someone to be able to reach 3k, 2400 MM should allow them to be able to climb out. Keep matching them with 3k players and they will keep sinking.

 

I understand an infamy floor would help save players from themselves .. but it would also lower the quality of matches.

Spoiler: More

To be clear -- I don't know exactly how the penalty system works because I've never spent long in it .. but I assume infamy would degrade over time (e.g., the player's MM infamy would decline 1-200 each season) ..

The issue with sub-1k players in the penalty is they continued grinding ranked with an underpowered ship before their infamy could degrade .. if there was a hard floor at 2400 infamy, the match in the screenshot would have still happened - it's well within the 1.9-3k infamy range of players not in the penalty.

If they had the ability to compete at 2400, they would slowly climb out of the hole they created .. but I suspect they can't compete at that level. (They should probably be around 16-1700 infamy).

So, they would continue losing, continue getting frustrated .. but without any penalty for floating matches .. thus lowering match quality.

And I understand how placing a player that should have 1700 infamy in matches with 3k players could lower match quality .. but it seems they balanced out that player with another on the opposing side, so there is a bit of fairness for the other players.

Anywho .. this thread was a prelude to another thread with small changes that could drastically improve game quality, player desire to play, and revenue ..

But I have even less motivation to write it now than I have the motivation to clock-in and grind another 10-hour shift in BB for a small chance at getting a perk I want.

 

When I talk Infamy floors, I'm always thinking about Infamy degradation. We know there is an issue when players rise to a new high for an instant and get smacked down, and Matchmaker(tm) uses that new number for the tanking penalty reference. I've always suggested that Infamy should be based on the average of hundreds of battles, not adjusted instantaneously by 20+ points. Doing that addresses the Infamy floor degredation as well... once they hit a floor at X, if they stay there long enough and no longer climb, they should degrade further over time. It's simple math, but extremely effective at addressing infamy tankers, allowing floors with necessary infamy degredation, giving higher satisfaction not to lose hundreds of Infamy in a few hours. All positives over the current system, with almost no drawbacks.