(Official)Platoons: penalties, bonuses and plans

Hello,

WG EU has posted an official version of the  upcoming platoon reward/penalties:

“Bonuses and penalties of EXP for platoons by results of a battle

With the release of update 9.15 , coordinated tactical action of players in platoons will be encouraged. Participants of a formation consisting of vehicles of the same Tier will receive XP bonuses. And the platoons that have multi-Tier vehicles (the difference between the maximum and the minimum Tiers is more than 3) will get EXP penalties depending on the difference in vehicle Tiers. When trying to roll out to a battle on vehicles of different Tiers (with the difference more than 3) players will get a warning about the incorrect selection of vehicles.

The XP bonus will be given to the platoons that consist of vehicles of the same Tier. The award depends on the result of battle, victory or defeat, as well as on the Tier of vehicles in a platoon. Dynamic platoons created during a battle will get XP bonuses for playing with vehicles of the same Tier starting from the next battle. If a player joins a previously formed platoon, they will receive an XP bonus only starting from the next battle if necessary conditions for this will be met.

XP penalties to the result of a battle, for multi-Tier vehicles in a platoon, will be applied if the difference between the maximum and the minimum Tiers of tanks in a platoon is more than three. The XP decreasing coefficient depends on the difference in Tiers of vehicles in the platoon.

If a platoon of multi-Tier vehicles joins a tank during a battle, a penalty after the first battle will be applied only to the players that have created multi-Tier platoons in the Hangar.

A notification with a bonus or a penalty by the result of the battle will be displayed on the third tab of the battle results.


The reward for platoons with vehicles of the same Tier will be an incentive for players to unite and to act in a battle more effectively. Our goal is promotion of collective actions. Moreover, for that the game already has a mechanism of dynamic platoons and further it’s planned to make new improvements that will simplify the searching for and formation of platoons, as well as the ability to automatically form platoons with friends and some other improvements.Why do we need this?

Solo players have been, and are, an important part of our game. However, we want to motivate lone wolves to discover a new side of World of Tanks – to try the game in platoons, as coordination and joint actions are the things that allow the participants of virtual battles to develop, and platoons are the most appropriate tool for this.

Platoons with vehicles of different Tiers are a demonstration of ungentlemanly conduct, for which very soon penalties will be imposed. Penalties will allow inexperienced or irresponsible players to see about the need for a balanced approach fwhen choosing vehicles before battle – vehicles of the same Tier make a platoon an effective tactical unit, which is not a burden on their team.

What’s next?

Further on in development we will be moving towards platoons of the same Tiers and will disabling the ability to go into battle within a platoon of vehicles of different Tiers. This will allow us to make necessary improvements to the team matchmaking system. Unlike the already existing one, that forms teams depending on the queue to a battle within the server, the new system will be more focused on the equality of the opposing teams by Tier and type of vehicle. It is planned that the teams will be formed on the principle of 3-5-7: 3 top-Tier tanks for the battle, 5 medium Tier tanks and 7 tanks of the minimum Tier.

Such a matchmaking system will not only solve the problem of balance inequality within opposing teams, but will also affect the gameplay of Random Battles: by encouraging the tanks’ full potential in battle, regardless of its positions in a teams’ list. The new matchmaking will increase the impact of any part of the teams’ list (top, medium or lower Tiers) on the outcome of battle.

More detailed information about the new matchmaking system will be published on the portal later.

Conclusion

We will carefully monitor the statistics and your response to this new feature. Based on the results of the analysis of the collected information, further development of this functionality will be made. Share your feedback and help us make the game better.”

 

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(Official)Platoons: penalties, bonuses and plans

71 thoughts on “(Official)Platoons: penalties, bonuses and plans

    1. I’d say that is quite obvious. Tier X bonus forces you to use gold to convert it, forcing you to buy gold. Not retarded at all, from a marketing point of view.

  1. Thag O'Mizer says:

    Well, as a lone wolf (46k solo games and a 52% win rate), I can now see myself putting less money WG’s way. Why would I invest in a game that now actively penalises me? Or pairs me with three noob Cromwells that camp behind a bunker and rage about hackers when the enemy’s Lefty picks them off over the next two minutes? At least solo players go full retard by themselves…

    1. I’d say you are effectively penalising yourself by choosing to solo in a teamplayer game. Your choice. There are plenty of teambased games which encourage this by giving a bonus for it. You really can’t blame them for doing this…

      1. Thag O'Mizer says:

        I’ll change your statement slightly. WG are penalising me by choosing to change a solo game into “tankbook”, and probably making the game worse in the process. More lemming trains? (Less chance of solo pubbies holding the neglected flanks for that vital few seconds.) Having to wait ten boring minutes between matches whilst waiting for your platoon mate to die? (Hmm, interesting marketing tag line, “Don’t play tanks, watch tanks do not much”.) Camping in threes, all waiting for another platoon to take the lead? Bot platoons harvesting that two to three percent extra experience? Third member of a platoon leaving the match and going AFK when the others are dead (so they all go straight into the next match instead of waiting)? Or how about a platoon of those ‘wake on being shot’ base camping bots (effectively giving you a twelve player team vs a fifteen player team, or winning the game by picking off the uncordinated platoon survivors approaching the cap zone one by one). It even gives new cheat mod options. Three platoon bots in base camp, someone shoots one, it sends out an SOS that activates the other two bots, who then concentrate fire on the attacking player.

      2. Worm318 says:

        Wow Thag O’Mizer you seem to have a trauma with bots. You should get an appointment with an specialist.

        I think the bonus is a great way of compensating the time you spend waiting for your platoon mates when dying early. Solo players still get an experience advantage (as two regular battles still get you more experience than one single battle + bonus), a credit advantage (as there is no bonus there( and a grinding advantage (as when platooning you normally must pick tanks that probably you already had gotten the elite status)

        Bots are gonna keep running, with this bonus or not, WG shouldn’t deny from players an obvious benefit because of malicious people. The real solution would be an aproppiate mechanic to detect these bots.

      3. pixywing says:

        Since when is world of tanks a team game. Do i get reward for taking damage for my team mate and thus allowing him to do more damage. No infact I get less credits and exp for doing so as I will go on to do less damage. I get more exp and credits for using my “team” as shields and farming 3.5k damage than throwing my tank away doing 300 damage and winning. The chance to get epic medals also incentives me to not even win the game as I get the same amount of exp. If I have 6 kills and have to defend camp and might die or I can farm their arty, obviously I go kill arty and lose the game as this gives me more exp and credits. This is very much a game of individuals that are grouped together in a way that they merely won’t kill each other as it is bad for them not the “team”.

      4. WoT has always been a teambased game. The simple fact random players don’t know how to play as a team doesn’t change that.

        The very fact individuals are grouped makes it exactly that. And the reasoning “this is how it is now”also isn’t a very good argument. That basically means nothing should ever change. Ever. Them wanting to promote teamplay is hardly a new thing.

      5. pixywing says:

        They need to start rewarding team play first. League of Legends and Overwatch do a good job of this, by rewarding the winning team evenly. Sure you might have just supported the team, but that might have been what caused it to win, but this game seeks to reward players and not teams. Until it does I will continue to use “team mates” as I see fit to get me more exp and credits.

      6. Well, it seems to me you are complaining about the bad teamplay (and rightfully so, it is horrible), but you don’t want them to actively promote it either, unless you yourself are being rewarded. Sounds a bit counterintuitive to me…

    2. qwertypresser says:

      I have to agree with Thag. My schedule is forever changing, and often I can not play when my friends are on. So feeling that I have to platoon up with random people, in order to just get these bonuses feels like WG is telling me how to play their play, instead of letting me play the game, the way I want to play it. Which, at least to me, means that I will want to play this game less.

      1. Hawaii 22 says:

        But… nothing changes for you if you continue to soloplay, which I intend to do. We get the same XP and the same credits as before. Other people might get some bonus XP but what is that to us? Nothing changes for us.

      2. Patata Caliente says:

        I also agree. Tbh I find it quite annoying that Wargaming basically wants to impose a way of playing the game onto me which I, frankly, do not like. Yes, I still do *can* play solo as much as I like, but still, this will be a little thorn in the side. Fully agree with Qwertypresser – this actually makes me want to play the game less.

    3. Enigmaticmuffin says:

      uh… How exactly is it penalizing you? You won’t be getting less xp for playing alone, you will just get more than usual in a platoon

    4. I see your point, but you also have to consider the work a lot of the good platoons put into games. Lots of games are won because of platoons. Plus consider in most circumstances its going to go from three idiots soloing, to three idiots in a toon. Only difference is that they are gonna all die together instead of different corners of the map. So it makes sense to give them an xp bonus for toons so at least the good ones get what they deserve. Think about all the games that a platoon does so much work…but the 12 idiots on their team cant carry their own weight so the game is lost. As much as i hate to say this, WoT is a team based game, it isn’t COD where you can solo most games if your good enough, sure some games are won by soloing but that’s pretty rare. And i don’t think your getting penalized. You are still getting the same XP you were before the update. Its just toons getting a bonus is all.

      1. Anonymous says:

        so when i am in my tier 6 light, ( i can get into tier 9) my platoonmates who are in another tier 6 tank (no light) will get the light mm or otherwise around ?
        Or is it if i am in a tier 6 light and my platoonmates are in tier 7 it count’s as the same tier ?

  2. Anonymous says:

    I also never platoon except for missions, and that won’t change. But as far as I’m concerned that just means no change – it’s not in any way penalizing me.

    1. Anonymous says:

      Sounds like solid thinking.

      All those reasons I don’t platoon will be chucked out the window because I get 1%(LOL) to 20% extra exp or in other words I save myself from doing another 1/100 to 1/5 battles for the sake of exp which will need converting unless I am grinding a crew.

      And in exchange I need to hang around someone else with their tank preferences, wait out their deaths, make them wait out my deaths and generally make compromises.

      This is not a great game to buddy up in unless you like stacking heavy/med due to RNG of team making plus map selection then really don’t mind the downtime when you don’t die together which incidentally cancels out the EXP bonus by wasting time.

      Of all the reasons I agree to platoon with someone the rewards have nothing to do with it. It typically involves me wanting to return the favour to someone who’s made an effort and made one of my games more enjoyable with some nice play.

      Might just be granting them a platoon medal before the end then leaving after the battle or it could be a few platoon games and then I never see them again.

      But do go on, explain why a trivial EXP bonus would tempt good players that don’t normally platoon to suddenly decide it’s worth it.

      1. Anonymous says:

        B/c of additional xp for premium tanks to farm more silver. And I didn’t have to write an essay to explain that. Now go back to Reddit and overthink some more.

  3. Jtiborm says:

    Ok. what happens when you toon up with T8 light tank and a TX arty for example. Is the bonus negated in that instance ???

    1. Varia Vespasa says:

      Thats the only real question I have but it should be easy to deal with. There arent that many scouts with funky MM, so it should be perfectly possible to just add a field to each scouts data that says “I count as a tier x,y or z tank for purposes of platoon exp bonuses” and an additional line in the unbalanced platoon warning dialogue that displays when necessary. Whether or not WG will do that remains to be seen of course, but it should be easy to do.

    1. JohnJr_1 says:

      I see it as a sign that WG wants to give light tanks a big F.U. It would be nice if Rita could get some clarification on it.

  4. CO_Andy says:

    I’m pretty confident that the Global Rebalance they’ve been talking about is going to spread the light tanks up to tier 10, even though they’ve denied it in the past. That would fix this new complaint about mismatched light platooning.

  5. Shrike58 says:

    Yeah…the scout tank issue is my main concern…now if what WoT is really looking at is battle tier there really shouldn’t be an issue…but who really knows.

  6. Mel C says:

    So to get a bonus I should platoon a valentine premium which only sees tier 4 with a Luchs. WG you so silly (or just fuckwits).

  7. Anonymous says:

    Do we have enough low tiers to support 3-5-7 matchmaking? I’m concerned that tier iv’s are going to get even more tier vi games than they alreasy do.

    1. pixywing says:

      Tiers 3-5 are unplayable on the NA server as they are constantly thrown into high tier games due to their only being 12k players on and the number is shrinking as 2 years ago it would have been close to 30k.

  8. drogo says:

    Not fussed by the platoon bonuses. The time you loose waiting for your toonmate to die is made up by the bonuses so it equals out in the end. If I am seriously grinding I will play solo as I can just play one tank with a premium tank in case I die before the end of the game.

    The big news for me is the proposed mm changes. Only having to worry about 3 t10 tanks when in a t8 is a big deal and will make that tier playable again. Atm 7 out of 10 games are t10 and the teams are normally made up with 5 or 6 t10’s, 4 or 5 t9’s a couple of scouts and me in my Panther 88. The IS6 is going to be stupidly OP with this mm though, can you imagine being one of 3 top tier tanks in 50% of the games you play? Munch munch!

  9. OK let’s tell it like it is: Giving an XP bonus for platooning is the same as giving a minus bonus to a solo player.
    In other words I finish the battle and you penalize me for not platooning.
    FU very much.

  10. Hate it cause now you get punished by not receiving bonuses for playing your light tanks with other vehicles of different tiers, eg tier 7/8 LT with Tier X arty.

  11. OrigamiChik3n says:

    So they spend money, time and effort in creating penalty system instead of simply not allowing members of fail platoons (and i’d say that even difference in more than 2 tiers can be considered as such) to click “Battle” button. Seems like textbook example of “chronic WG logic” case.

  12. pixywing says:

    The fact that I can still get tier 1s in my tier 10 games as they are platooned with tier 8 rental tanks really doesn’t get me excited to re-install the game anytime soon.

  13. piledriveryatyas says:

    This should have some great affects on the personal missions. Some of those personal missions require you to “kill 2 TDS a tier higher than you” or “set 2 tanks 1 tier higher than you on fire” (I know that one just got changed) and the best way to assure that you get into a match where you can do those missions is to team up with someone a tier higher, or even 2 tiers higher. The missions, while rightfully challenging, leave FAR too much to RNG, so players resort to finding ways to skew RNG to their favor. This fucks them over even more.

  14. Str0nkTenk says:

    Thinly disguised attempt at encouraging ‘community play’ because WG feels that ‘community’ and social players (i.e clans) stay and play (i.e PAY) more.

    Could not be further from the truth. ask any of the thousands of solo players who have 30K+ games.

    I don’t want to wait around for other platoon mates when my tank is destroyed.
    I don’t want to pick a particular tier because my mate wants to ‘grind my tier4’ etc.
    I don’t want to not play my pick of tank because my platoon mate ‘don’t have any tier9 med’
    I don’t want to have to endure ‘faff breaks’ while my platoon mates ‘get a cuppa’, ‘take a piss’, ‘walk the dog’ etc.

    so basically, WG you are penalising me because I want to play at MY pace, in tanks I choose, at a time that I PAY MONEY FOR.

    it wont make me play in a platoon.

    1. drogo says:

      You list all the reasons why this platoon bonus is needed and then complain that you don’t get it as a solo player?!? The bonus just help balance out the lost time grinding you have to except if you platoon. Even with the bonuses I still think grinding is best done solo unless you can find a good team mate that wants to grind the same tier as you for as long as you do and doesn’t have a weak bladder/dog/thirst/smoke/phone/rl etc

    1. drogo says:

      Don’t be so silly, unless you are either that good you can carry a team with one more bot in it or you are already botting with your main the loss in win’s would remove any extra bonus xp you would get for being in a toon

  15. atomicemu says:

    I can’t help but wonder at the mental gymnastics required to perceive a small XP bonus encouraging team-play in a team-based game as a ground-shaking penalization of solo players.

    1. A sufficiently advanced victim mentality is required to get from:

      “I choose to play in a way that won’t receive this bonus, even though I could if I wanted to.”

      to:

      “Waaah. International conspiracy against me!”

  16. I don’t understand why people who don’t platoon feel penalized by this. They are not taking away from your experience, you will earn the same amount. They are giving a laughably small to small bonus to platooned players. The penalties should be higher though, that part won’t work. Disabling the ability to make noob platoons is the only way to get rid of them.

  17. Ukřivděny says:

    Hm další pohádka. Až to začnou myslet vážně a čestně ,tak do toho započítají i schopnost (hodnocení) hráčů ,jinak budou popravy a ponížování hračů pokračovat.

    1. Klimax says:

      Protože to hodnocení (jaké? A celkové nebo specifické tanku?) bude fakt “fungovat”. Báchorky si taky nech pro sebe. (Hodnocením bys to fakt “vylepši”l ještě víc…)

  18. “Further on in development we will be moving towards platoons of the same Tiers and will disabling the ability to go into battle within a platoon of vehicles of different Tiers.”

    Interesting idea but I’d like clarification from WarGaming about how premium tanks that still have preferential matchmaking will fit into this upcoming scheme and how they plan to correct the mismatched MM that’s needed if you want to play a light tank and your platoon mates don’t.

    For example, the Pz.Kpfw. B2 740 (f), this tier 4 German heavy tank that’s on sale right now for $10, it gets super preferential matchmaking: it can only see tier 4 games. But because of that, it can really only platoon with itself. That’s gonna suck if you buy one of these, grab your platoon, and constantly get dragged into tier 6 games because no one else has a tier 4 tank that will only see tier 4 games.

    Lights are a different story. MM already throws them into games 8 tiers higher than the tank itself. Platoons must play mismatched tiers if not everyone wants to play a light. If that goes away, what happens? KV-1 teams up with M24 Chaffee (both tier 5 vehicles) and gets to find out how good its armor is against IS-3s and T-32s. But don’t worry too much. Everyone in your platoon is going to get an extra 2% XP. Fun for the whole family!

  19. So a platoon of a tier 7 scout and 2 tier 8 meds dont get bonus exp, because of the tier 7 scout? 🙁

    And like Kendai said, whats about tanks with prefered MM?

    Nice idea but WG made of this idea is…not so nice.

  20. Bhaaly says:

    All those who whine about light with arty, pref matchmaking tenks, stop making a fool yourself, and learn to read. 1-3 tier differential makes 0, zero nada penalty. The spec german tier 4 heavy can platoon up with a tier 7 easily, cause their tier differential is 3, ergo no penalty.

  21. pixywing says:

    Again dumbing down tier 10s.

    Rewarding good players with being only top tier and having little competition 80% of the enemy team being low tiered seems really bad as this bad for them as there is little challenge, bad for newer players that are trying to get to tier 10 as they have 3/15 of their games top tier 5/15 mid tier, but a staggering 7/15 as bottom tier. This will also be bad for newer players getting into the game. Can you imagine grinding a tier 3 well 7/15 of your games are now bottom tier? Boy this sure sounds like a good way to drive away new players and get older players to quit.

    1. drogo says:

      I doubt that t10 tanks will get 357 mm in every game, I think it will be 3 5 7, 8 7 or 15

      As for getting just under half your games as bottom tier, what’s the difference to the current mm? I only play 1 t3 tenk (the locust) and very rarely, however I often find myself in a game with over half t5 tanks and me and maybe one or two other token t3 tanks. With the new system you are always going to be relevant and never get that game where you think “wtf am I meant to do with this mm”

  22. Anonymous says:

    XVM occasionally reports a battle as ‘Tier 11’ – presumably when T9 or 10 tanks (or T8 scouts) are supposed to be low tier. I wonder if that’ll affect this new MM…

  23. it should be a 20% bonus for all tiers and a 50% penality for all tiers. Nobody will drive troll platoons of so huge difference, and why would you get less xp for lower tiers considering the lower tiers are usualy the harder to play when not toptier.

  24. Anonymous says:

    Because this is going to completely solve the problem of me and my friends who like to fuck around with 2 loltrakors platooned in a T92. Kek, -50% XP at tier 10? Because XP is the only thing that matters when you don’t need anymore of it! Haha

  25. Migsaec says:

    The xp bonus for the tiers below t8 is too little imo. 1% for t4, the suffering tier? Seriously?
    Doubling the xp bonus for those tiers would make it more reasonable.

  26. taiga_aurora says:

    Whatever…I play scouts 80% of the time; this major announcement about MM is laughably meaningless to me.

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