A seemingly absurb idea for seal clubbing prevention.

Ya'll know that ships have different limited total slot points and increases on each tier, right? While equipment, though upgraded and evolved, their slot point stays the same no matter how high its level is. And because of that, we now (and since forever) have problems with shameless seal clubbers which leads to player complaining about the match making system... which then leads to the Devs having to "fix" it time and time again...

So, my proposal is either increase equipment slot points once or twice every tier OR limit equipment levels on each tier (e.g. Mk2 can't equip anything above level 20 or so...) [Or both, what ever floats your boats]

If those ideas aren't suited, how about yet another "fix" for the Match Making System - Currently queued ship will NEVER meet any ships 2 tiers higher than them (e.g. Mk1 will never meet Mk2... Mk2 never meet Mk4... so on and so forth...) since the higher the tier, the more slot points they have.

And I would have mentioned equipment rarities here, but since ya'll tend to keep ya pants loose so I didn't bother...

You know what... Glue your damn pants on if ya gonna read this next part... Imagine you are a shamless seal clubber and the match making system now rely heavily on ship tier, you would definitely love that, wouldn't you, BUT now there's also an equipment levels limitation on each tier (let's just say Mk1 can't have anything higher than lvl10) and you think to yourself "oh well I just keep my rare/epic/leggy at that level... You devs think your so smart" (I intentionally put your instead of you're there cause all seal clubbers are retard anyway - I TOLD YOU TO KEEP YA PANTS ON!) Well too bad b****! Now ya can't have anything above uncommon on Mk1 (then nothing above rare on Mk3 or something). EQUIPMENT RARITY IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY THE MATCH MAKING SYSTEM IS ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND THERE NEEDS TO BE A LIMITATION SYSTEM IF ANYONE EVER HOPE TO KEEP THE BAY FAIR AND BALANCE!

 

Seal clubbing is a result of the system allowing rapid infamy dropping. Making it gradual and implementing floors would solve it much easier than you are proposing.

 

... or... they might just reconsider how they weigh a "ship". In real life the mark of the boat is almost a wash. It adds HP and it removes speed and agility. Empty slots also don't matter. I think they need to add up what you've put IN those slots along with the boat itself and your infamy to come up with a more solid answer.

The limiting of levels based on boat mark is another solution, but I'd prefer to just weight the matchmaking appropriately and see if the problem resolves itself. For instance, if they did what I'm proposing then I could easily play with my lower level son. I'd just fire up my M2 enforcer and put some uncommon gear on it and suddenly I'd be more or less at his level... no tanking required to do that. In theory I could also load up with an alternate weapon choice for guild questing and the fact that my boat is now weaker would be factored into the matchmaking.... so no forced-tanking by the system either. My solution would also handle the sometimes huge bumps in power. Shooters, for instance, become quite a bit more powerful between mark 4 and 5. That'd be reflected in my system assuming you actually put something in the new red slot.

Sure, skill matters. But even if infamy accurately measured skill there are limits to how much it matters. The current state is that they are relying on both infamy and boat mark to do the match making and neither actually measures anything. That's why the matches are all over the map and why tanking works.

 

Infamy floor is actually a nice thing that I'm hoping that they would add, but I still prefer also having equipment level limit per ship tier that way it would add an extra layer of seal clubbing prevention imho :^]

 

I'm still of the mind that gear doesn't matter. If you are an MK3 Speeder at 1k infamy with a T2 flare and T3 sniper and I'm an MK5 Enforcer at 1k infamy with all T4 gear, it is effectively a battle of equals as far as I'm concerned

 

Even if the match making system rely heavily on ships tier, shameless-seal clubbers will be unaffected and maybe even make it better for them because there's no item level limitations on each tier, once could just put their high level equipment on their low tier ship and queue in notthing can stop them, not to mention equipment rarity, let's say Mk1 can only have equipment up to level 10 but then they can still just keep their rare/epic or even legens (let's be honest when is the last time you encounter a seal clubber with anything less than rare) equipment at that level (I think you know where I'm going with this)

 

Wow. That's fascinating. That's gotta be a speeder perspective on life. I can guarantee you that in a shooter meeting a boat 400% more powerful than yours is a death sentence unless the opponent is truly awful. Now that I think on that, I have in fact dueled M5 shooters in my M3 speeder (and my M2 enforcer) -- each equipped with Rare-10 type stuff. You're right. If my skill is better than his... enough so that I don't ever get hit, then it's just a tedious business of chipping away at his HP.

In a shooter, that turns into a slugfest and you're going to lose.

 

I think you missed the point. Sure, they can load up their M1 ship with legendaries and queue up. But man that's going to be a lot of gearscore factoring into that match-making and I'd assume they'll be pitted against M5 and above boats with more normal gear. That's the point. Swapping out weapons doesn't get you anything really. It raises or lowers your power and accordingly what you're matched against.

Basically that M1 boat with legendaries becomes yet another odd build.

 

Well then gear level aint a problem to genuine players like you, I have pretty much the same state you mentioned, I have tier 4 shooter but I don't have any t4 gears (not that it matters 'cause if switch to Enforcer a while ago and I'm lovin' it :^]

 

Well I mean that is the mms relies HEAVILY on ship tiers that is Mk1 with leggy in all Mk1 match... Think about it... Goodbye new players at that point

 

I agree. My argument is that it shouldn't. That's a wildly inaccurate way to measure the gear part of the match-making. I'm proposing a more accurate way.

You want to put limits on the slots and should that prove necessary I'm not against it. I just think a better weighing of gear would eliminate the problem along with quite a few others. In my system, there is no way that anyone could use gear to their advantage because whatever they did the system would merely account for that and match them appropriately.

 

Personally, I find it a truism that in almost all things, gear matters somewhat and skill matters somewhat. This game, I'd say, has a fairly decent balance of both.

 

Maybe I was unclear. I think the game itself has a fairly decent balance of both. I think the match making system utilizes neither of those in making it's decisions. Therein is my issue with the match making.

 

Exactly... My original argument is that infamy should reflect your combination of power and skill and put you into a match of equals based on nothing more than a relative rating number (infamy).

Forcing players into matches just because they upgraded their boat, as it happens now, exposes a flaw of the matchmaking system, because it results in infamy drop. Why does an upgrade result in a drop in effectiveness? It really should be (and is) as simple as this: if you are OP, you will bubble up, and if you are getting one or two-shotted you should bubble down until you stabilize in a match of equals. Your level of boat, training, armor, items already feed in based on how effective you are in battle (win/loss/kills/damage/stuns/whatever), so the matchmaking system should only need to use infamy, relative number, meaningless in itself, just something used to sort player effectiveness relative to other players.

The only complexity comes into play when Matchmaker(tm) wants to make balanced battles, for example ensure equal fixers on each side, or have a good boat distribution such that we have one of each boat represented on each side instead of 5 shooters vs 5 speeders. That would be a fun match by the way, but certain combinations can result in accidental imbalances. I'm ok with balancing ship types, but I'm also not sure I could argue we shouldn't have the occasional 5 Enforcer vs 5 Defender battles either.

 

I never noticed the ship's tier making a difference in the matchmaking. In Ace 1 I see mostly mk5 and sometimes mk6, and on my secondary account where I'm a mk3, I still see anything between mk1 and mk5, though mostly mk4 since my infamy is kinda high for mk3. It doesn't seem at all like I'm being placed with anybody based on ship tier.