Why Im thinking about scrapping & quitting

Its been over 27k battles and about 3 years of this incredible game and for the first time I feel ready to scrap everything and close up shop. Here's why.
At the game's core is a competition between 10 players. Like all sports, the moment competition is tainted and doubt creeps in about the integrity of the competition and matchups, everything is lost. There's no point. Like every single other ship on the bay, I've got a .500 winning percentage, probably a few points off in either direction. I've been in nightmare about 3 or 4 times but spent the majority of my time in the game frustratingly stuck between 3100-3700.

I've spent lots of money to speed up ship building, but definitely not on the level of whales. VIP plus random purchases, which makes this game easily the most expensive game I've ever played and I've been gaming since Commodore 64.

As a shooter, I was anonymous and had almost no impact on any game. Averaging about 25k dmg per game with 4-5 T5 epics with a few legendaries mixed in at times.
As a speeder, to win, you have to dominate with 2 weapons. I felt the stress of playing with that ship removed the joy, but overall, I was at my best in that yellow boat.
I loved playing with the Enforcer, spent a bunch of money to improve it, got to 4600 infamy with it, and then the agility update turned it into a horrible experience to use.
So I moved on to Fixer, which was challenging cause I had no fixer items. I improved the Fixer up to level 50, gradually built up a repair pulse, got the legendary acheivement, and had the start of a good ship. I started winning and the joy came back. Except as I creeped back up the table, the more fixers I played with. I started finding that everytime i played with a fixer, I was paired with at least 2 others. I had a game of 5 fixers. Its a completely pointless ship when there's nothing to fix.
So I switched to the Reaper when it came out and was really psyched about it. I probably spent $100 upgrading that ship to a level 35, but still cant use it. Take that thing into battle with its 7000 HP and you're toast in a minute. At this pace, I'd probably need another year to get that Reaper to the point where I can actually compete with it.
I even tried Defender, and the last straw happened when I was paired with 3 other defenders in another ranked game. No dice. Obviously.

Over the last few months since events started, matchmaking has regressed and has become a total mockery making the game supremely frustrating to play. Each lose is tough, but tougher yet when you're given a shit chance before the game even starts. Why am I being paired with 1200 infamy while Im fighting tooth and nail for nightmare? Why does Rovio continue to prioritize the experience for new players when vets have been complaining about this quality for YEARS. I've been on several top 50 guilds, guild chat rooms are used almost exclusively to complain about matchmaking. Update after update has released new features that have dilluted the game. Introducing teal pieces, and so obviously making them more available in raffles than other piece types has made it seemingly impossible to get my last epic duct tape or my last epic turbo. Rovio gave me a legendary mine, so I committed to it even though I hated the weapon, only to have knocked down 10%. I played for 2 years with yellow ships, didnt get enough yellow legendaries to complete a single yellow item.

This game is not for me anymore cause its not fun anymore. Every game I play, there's a 50% chance that my team doesnt need my ship.
Im off to find another game that takes user feedback seriously and not only works to attract new players, but one that takes notice of loyal fans, listens, and offers a product worth the subscription costs.

 

have you ever played Respawnables . you will find that more fun

 

Thank you! I'll give it a shot

 

I am not playing this game for long as you. i am playing it for 4-5 months . progress in this game is to slow to feel like any fun . i mean this game need too much grinding . i am f2p player and watch ads for extra reward . but if i wana build t5 epic items it will take like year or two years . i don't think i am gonna stay that long on this game . i have finished max level in Respawnables twice . same in some racing games like The Grid 2 . i reached max level on that game twice and i was not even playing it more then one or two hour a day . it was fun and i win or lose all progress was based on my performance . but in Battle bay you can't feel same because sometimes you lose because of other players . and that doesn't really represent your performance . something is missing .

 

if you play that game try to reach Heavy Machine gun . its too much fun and long range rapid fire you win most of the battles

 

Couldnt agree more. Even if you pay, even if you buy Rovio's offers for a crate with "4 times" the chances of getting a blah blah blah, you still need 5 more of them to have an impact. Those T1 epics are shit. It took me 6 months to build up my T5 epic repair pulse, my T1 legendary repair pulse, and T4 epic duct tape. It took 3 years to get to a T4 epic turbo, still waiting on my 6th. You grind and build it up just to be paired with 3 other fixers... Its a total joke. I cant think of a more frustrating gaming experience.

 

What's missing is proper matchmaking. There are many indicators that can be used to put equals in a match, but they are being ignored, and Rovio's excuse for using anti-competitive matchmaking is thin.

Players: Matchmaking is frequently lop-sided / RNG, and thus frustrating.
Rovio: Players want faster matchmaking so we loosen the criteria the longer the wait.
Players: And sacrifice the integrity of the battles?
Rovio: Effecitvely, yes
Players: But that's not OK. Why can't we have both fast matchups and integrity?
Rovio: Not enough players
Players: How about you bring in more players?
Rovio: <silence>
Players: Then how about you just increase the wait
Rovio: <silence>

It's a stalemate. If you do have high level gear, the odds of you being OP in a match is high, and thus P2W don't have nearly as many matchmaking complaints as the 99%-ers. In my 2400 Infamy ranked matches I'm seeing Infamy ranges from 2 to Nightmare League, and I'm seeing the per-match Infamy spread rising every time I try ranked. Some part of me wishes Rovio just shutters Battle Bay, as they seem to have given up on the fairness part of their game management obligations, but when matchmaking is fair and competitive it reminds me how good this game can be again.

 

when i reached 800 infamy i was start getting battles against 2k infamy players in events and in ranked i was also getting beaten by opponent which had more better gear score . i had level up my shooter from level 24 to level 30 , now its 32 . and had to upgrade my items to max as uncommon to try to get legendary . i got two legendary t1 by achievement and i still use t5 uncommon blue items . but at one point i felt like game make me to level up everything otherwise there was no possibility to win battles. because there was a point when i started losing 6-7 in row and 1-2 win . and everytime stronger players in unfriendly .

now there are more items so making progress is more slow . its possible if someone buy box with 3900 perls will get teal items or big bandage or standard torpedoes . as i have combined rare ad epic pieces of green and got plasma from both .
so its possible to get something you don't want .


and without having more active players its difficult to fix match making . i feel like there are only 50k active players .

they should simplify game and make progress easy put some advertising and possible it will get more players .

maybe launch its as BattleBay 2

 

The issue I have with the speed v matchmaking argument, is that the ships are ready to go. Rovio just can’t figure out how to divide them by 2 fairly. Whenever I play as fixer, my team gets 4 fixers and the other team has 1. All 5 fixers are ready to battle, no waiting required. It sucks to have 5 fixers in a battle, but at least split them across the 10. This fix is easy, I bet I can find a developer who can find a solution, fix it, and deploy to production in less than a day and that’s being insanely generous. There’s no reason why if there’s 4 defenders in a queue, that all of them need to be on the same team. That’s my primary issue, it not only makes the matchup bad, but it also makes all the strengths of your ship redundant.

The other issue is with legendaries. For earned legendaries (as opposed to acheivements) Ive been given a Cannon (worst weapon on the bay), a gatling gun (complete waste of time), a mine (hate that weapon, and then they nerfed it, ty rovio) and missiles. I already built up a T5 epic missile, so I probably have to wait at least 2 more years to luckily land on a my 3rd missile. Which is absolutely nuts. I used to grind, play hours and hours per night. Its just not fun or fair enough anymore to do that.

 

I don't understand why they really think players will wait whole life to get t5 items .

and i can't mentioned any name of the dev but i saw a post by someone he posted a reply from battle bay team one said they are ok with 4-5 fixers in a team because win lose ratio is still there . they will only change it if those fixer teams start losing more then 55% .

 

Money talks and apparently its the only thing rovio cares about. So I ended my VIP. They're happy with players losing cause they'll grind and eventually pay to speed things up. The fact that theyre ok with that is exactly the reason why Im fed up with Rovio.

 

Balancing is the most important aspect of matchmaking... but the algorithm becomes exponentially difficult the broader the Infamy/GS range of the participants. What you are talking about is ship type balancing, which is less difficult when all participants are equals. Imbalances can be had fairly easily... let's try an RNG matchmaking scenario:

Side 1 Infamy: 4k+4k+650+650+650 (9550 total)
Side 2 Infamy: 2k+2k+2k+2k+2k (10k total)

They are balanced side to side, but is it fair? You're likely going to see side 2 quickly decimate the 3 650 Infamy players, and side 1 pick off at least 1 2k player before ending up with 2v4 battle at which point the NML side has the advantage.

Now let's say the two NML players are Fixers, and the rest are Enforcers. That side is now screwed. If Infamy were all equal, they would both be more competitive matches than either of the above. It's all important... equal participant ratings, ship type balancing, and Infamy balancing, and sacrificing any one of them starts causing issues. We have 2 of the 3 of those in question as we stand now, but all 3 have to be in line for it to be a competitive game.

 

its difficult to fix this as this game have to many thinks like captain level, item levels , training level and Infamy . gearscore don't even ad training so someone with max training will have more powerfull items then someone with half training . and because items can level up to lvl50 so finding a right balance match is difficult . i wish if there was a way to simplify items and boats level to have less difference between higher and lower level items so every battle can have some balance .

 

Im not sure captain level is needed and very sure gear score has nothing to do with ranked matches. Infamy has nothing to do with infamy matches. And its not even something that occurs like a random bug or some broken logic. When I'm a fixer, I literally play just about every game with multiple fixers, and very often, against a team with none or 1. Normally, when I play as a speeder, if I get 2 fixers its extremely rare and kinda sucks because it automatically determines the strategy of the game. As a fixer, i'm getting absolutely laughable matchups like 4 or 5 fixers against a normal team. If this was once a night or week, fine, it sucks but shit happens. This crap is happening so frequently in the 3000-4000 infamy range that its completely killed the fixer for me. Its not complicated to balance that a little.

 

Played with enforcer (was convinced by other thread). 3 fixers v 0. Wtf? Just put one on the other team. It’s fine.

 

Ever feel like a bunch of guys yelling down a bottomless pit?

 

Is this thread allowed to exist?

First of all, maybe isn’t scrapping a good idea (for if you ever ever (maybe over 100 years)) decide to return. (I have a friend who did this, and I don’t recommend it lol)
Second of all, have you already thought about a guild? I’d recomment Quiters and Scrappers (2)

 

Is a "thinking about leaving" thread the same as a leaving thread? It's fairly subjective.