[Concern/Suggestions] Punished for Being a Good Player

In the current state of the game Free-To-Play players are punished for being skilled at the game. The higher your skill level the stronger your opponents will be. I am an Mk1 ship at 600 infamy up against full teams of Mk3-4. I am forced into just a couple of play styles (Fixer, Long Range Shooter, and Mine Speeder) because if I get within attack range I will be 1-shot most of the time. I don't mind the challenge at all, I find a way to make it work, but what I do mind is that the reward system is relative to other players. I am limited to 1 Battle Star per win because I am not "contributing" as much to my team, when in fact I have to do much more than them just to even show up on the scoreboard.

Solution: Matchmaking should take place within ship tiers. There can be a tier for Mk1-Mk2. Mk2-Mk3. Mk3-Mk4, etc.

I love the gameplay and progression, heck, everything about this game. Unfortunately if this is not fixed I don't know if I can stay to enjoy this game. I would love to hear back from the devs that they are working on implementing a fair matchmaking system sometime in the near future.

 

Well welcome to the game! Browse the forums and you will find many similar threads. Read up on matchmaking and you will see lots of explanations. I understand it is not what you want to hear but ship mk is only a portion of the reality. Per your suggestion I could be a lv 40 captain, running T4 weapons on an Mk1 defender. Would you like to face that? The infamy system is not flawless, but it does work. If you are finding difficulty, then you are running at a much higher infamy than maybe you should be. Keep leveling and you will break to the next wall. Rinse repeat.

Best suggestion is to level your ship ASAP. It is not hard to do so in the beginning. Matchmaking isn't only about the ship MK but also the gear levels. Level both often! A good player reads the team and plays accordingly. Two mk1s can take down a tougher opponent.

 

What we learned from Mika recently is that the wild fluctuations in infamy seem to coalesce somewhere around 2000 infamy. Under that and things are horribly corrupted by the incentive structure and the guild quests. Take a look at where you are right now (600 infamy)



As a mark 1 boat you're about where you ought to be on that graph. The problem is in the high mark boats also showing up near you. By the time you get up to 2000 infamy you'll notice that the gap between weakest and strongest boat closes substantially. What's going on here is that Rovio has polluted the lower infamies with their incentive structure but apparently different incentives apply upwards of 2000 infamy.

My strategy is to not get too wrapped up about it. Sure, the first half of the game is a zoo that's hard to take seriously. But I continue to get parts and gear and level up. Sooner or later I'll have the boat strength to break out of the chaos and confusion. I'm currently estimating a mid-tier Mark 5 to do that (so level 35-ish) . Up until then I just grind away... ridiculous matches I simply end as quickly as feasible and move on to another. I have no particular goal around gaining infamy right now... just blue parts so I don't really care if I win or lose. Like all grinding, quantity is key.

 

Yeah that makes sense guys. Thanks for the responses. I like that chart. Though I wouldn't say I was "about where I ought to be." When I posted this I was level 5 at 600 infamy.
Anyway, two weeks have passed. I learned how to "play the system" as far as rewards go and intentionally keep myself at a low rank with high damage every game to earn tons of stars and weapon achievements. It's dumb, but effective. I'll gladly abuse it as long as it is available to abuse. I decided to climb before the end of the season however, and I'm currently at 1150 with my MK2 fixer. Unfortunately I'm up against all level 30-40 players every game who have Tier 4 epics. Every weapon one shots me. It is very difficult to play, but i'm trying to push (and succeeding somehow).
Infamy system does not work alone. I could see an infamy system that also includes a player level matchmaking. Players like me could be matched against other players of infamy, within a certain level range (as opposed to ship tier range as I suggested before).

 

That was probably unclear on my part. What I meant is that YOU where at a reasonable infamy level for your boat. What was wrong wasn't where you where. It was where all those level 30+ captains where.

Heh... periodically I decide to push too. Every time I'm reminded why that's a bad idea. Take heart, at least, that you're in a fixer. Like a speeder that boat is relatively comfortable with being grossly overmatched.

 

1300 infamy *