It's not that difficult to drop 2000 Infamy... it's only 85 matches, which many of us can play in a day or two. Last summer I had a streak of 38 losses in 40 games over 3 days, which was enough to put me close to the tanking penalty risk. I was trying, as I do every match, I took breaks after losing a bunch, but luck (or the system) was against me. I was able to climb back up over a week or two, got crushed several hundred Infamy, went up again, then had a really nice run over a week, set a new high, and immediately was crushed down about 1300 Infamy from my high, which is what caused the tanking penalty to go into effect. Someone commented earlier that it is a bit unfair to base the tanking penalty on a very recent, very brief, all time high, and I agree. The penalty started working at 800 Infamy drop, and was fully in effect by 900, and beyond that my rewards were reduced to almost nothing... was getting like 3k Gold and 1k sugar per match when i was used to 50k+ gold. I went through two full seasons playing for almost no battle rewards trying to work out of that hole..
The players that are <500 Infamy yet still being put in 3k matches are in a tanking penalty zone well beyond where I went.
I had a half dozen guildmates mysteriously struck with this Infamy deterioration disease about the same time... we had all been high Ace players 2800-3500 for months, and in a flash we were flirting with Master league. No one has fully recovered from that, and that experience drove me from ranked play entirely other than very carefully getting my Infamy up a notch. I'm fairly certain the cause of this issue was newly expanded matchmaking criteria, as a 2200 Infamy player I was constantly in battles players 1400-3000+ Infamy... and as such it was extremely difficult to control a match when players of all different levels and skills were thrown together.
And here we are today, matchmaking criteria is even worse. Last time I was in there it was a full 3000 Infamy spread in many of my matches, so ranked has degenerated into RNG. The impact of lack of control by players is a substantial risk of dropping leagues, dropping league rewards, and getting into the Infamy tanking zone which cut battle rewards. Ranked is a riddled with far too much risk, and to add insult to injury many of these <500 Infamy accounts with new players are being thrown into 3k matches making the matches even more random. This is why it's not worth playing ranked any longer, and it is why even NML players won't risk ranked without a fleetmate. The game shouldn't, and doesn't have to be like this.
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