Changes reveled at last nights Facebook live stream. To start with the changes to be rolled out in the next update: the improved matchmaker and Tier X light tanks. Then news from the Sandbox test and a look at the new Ranked Battles mode.From the WG portal on NA.
Improved Matchmaker.
The ideal tier distribution for 3-Level Battle, 2-Level Battle and 1-Level Battle.
If you look at the current system, it can create 8/5/2 teams, where the two vehicles at the bottom have little to offer against tanks in the middle and at the top. And they rarely get to engage with their brethren from the opposing team: there are just two of them on each side. Pretty vulnerable to all the other vehicles, they’re likely to get destroyed rather fast.
The improved matchmaker puts an end to this imbalance and a few other upsetting scenarios, with a system of patterns and rules. At the heart of the system are three setups: three-, two-, and single-level battles. As for the other rules, they tackle some of the most common queries popping up in the community:
- Eliminate frustrating scenarios where vehicles in the middle and at the bottom of the list are outnumbered by those at the top (just like the one we described above), as well as minimize instances of getting matched at the bottom of the list way too often during a series of battles.
- Ensure a balanced vehicle spread for each team, including the restriction of no more than three arty per side.
- Provide an enjoyable gaming experience for platoons by letting only one-tier Platoons into Random Battles.
- Reduce the instances of map dupes.
The matchmaker analyzes the queue (the number, types, tiers and battle tiers of vehicles in it), and then creates teams based on the speed-vs.-optimal-setup principle. Simply put, it balances getting you into action quickly and creating a perfect match. If the search for the “perfect” match will leave you queueing too long, these rules will be relaxed in order to get you into a battle faster. The longer the wait, the bigger the step-away the system takes from the “perfect” patterns: 3/5/7 and 5/10. This way, you don’t get tired of waiting and always end up with a setup optimal for the current situation on the server. Now, let’s take a closer look at the three scenarios.
Three-Level Battles
If there’s enough variety in the queue and you aren’t playing in a Tier I–II vehicle, you’ll get into the most frequent setup: a three-level battle with a +/-2 Tier matchmaking spread. Having analyzed vehicles waiting to hit the battlefield, the matchmaker will use the 3/5/7 pattern or one of its variations to build a team.
| Position in the list | Most frequent vehicle rotation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Middle | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
| Bottom | 7 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
Two-Level Battles
You’ve most likely been in a two-level battle with a +/-1 Tier matchmaking spread before. With the improved matchmaker, we are formalizing this setup and, most importantly, imposing clear restrictions on when it can occur.
- Firstly, this rule applies to low-tier vehicles (Tier I–II). In this particular case, it’s designed to create favourable conditions for newcomers.
- The second case is for situations when the vehicle variety in the queue doesn’t allow for a three-level battle, and we wouldn’t want to keep you waiting long to get into action.
Here, the matchmaker will use the 5/10 pattern or one of its variations to assemble teams. Just as with three-level engagements, the longer the wait time, the more the pattern will differ from 5/10. And there will be no battles where vehicles in the middle of the list are outnumbered by those at the top.
| Position in the list | Most frequent vehicle rotation | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Top | 5 | 4 | 3 |
| Middle | 10 | 11 | 12 |
Single-Level Battle
Finally, when a large amount of same-tier vehicles are queueing at a given moment, it can result in an excruciatingly long wait time. To get you into battle quicker, the revised matchmaker will create single-level battles where all vehicles are of the same Tier.
Other Mechanics
Along with the three setups we just described, the matchmaker will receive several new mechanics, all aimed to elevate the playing experience by resolving issues that you reported to us:
Getting into the top/middle/bottom of the list. If you are at the bottom for a few battles in a row, you are likely to get in the middle/top for the next one, regardless of whether you play in the same vehicle or choose a new one during this series.
Vehicle spread. The difference in the number of light tanks, arty and TDs between the team can influence the battle outcome before it even begins. That’s why, when building a selection for a battle, the matchmaker will begin with these three. Teams will be assembled starting with light tanks, then SPGs and finally TDs so that each includes an equal number of these three classes. One note: the team setup also depends on the queue sizes and how each class is represented at a given time. So, the two teams won’t always have all 5 types.
Arty. To prevent arty from spoiling the gaming experience, we’ll limit the number of SPGs per team to a maximum of three per side. Recently revealed in the Sandbox, this limitation was well received by the tester community and proved to have a positive effect on gameplay. It’ll make its way to live servers soon.
Platoons. Another frustrating scenario that has to stop is getting matched against tanks that are 3+ tiers higher than yours. Currently, it often happens with multilevel Platoons. Let’s say, you are playing in a Tier V tank, join forces with a comrade of yours who chose a Tier VIII vehicle, and end up facing off with Tier IX–X vehicles. That doesn’t sound like much fun. The improved matchmaker will allow only one-tier Platoons into Random Battles, solving this issue for good.
Map rotation. Currently, you end up on some maps way too often, and playing the same, let’s say, three maps over and over again is frustrating. It can even get to the point where it discourages you from playing on. The improved matchmaker reduces the number of unfortunate events like that with new logic. It analyzes maps that tankers from the two newly created teams played over the last 10 battles. And then, it places them on a map none of them have seen in the last few sessions.
Light Tanks
Light tanks were initially designed as support fire vehicles that would always work alongside others, rather than a standalone battle unit. And so they remain in the game of today, often resulting in frustrating setups. If you take your light tank collection for a ride once in while, you often find yourself matched against vehicles that are a good three tiers higher than yours. For example, when playing in a Tier VIII light tank, you might face off against Tier IX–X vehicles—and you won’t be at the top of the list, which isn’t your most desired setup.
To fix it, we’ll stretch light tank branches to Tier X, making the +/-2 Tier spread a norm for them, just as it is for other classes. They’ll still play as support vehicles focused on scouting, but with greater firepower.
We’ll also rebalance all light tanks to ensure that renewed branches fit into the confines of the +/-2 rule. It should erase abrupt changes in gameplay within one branch. Vehicles that currently reside on Tier VIII will move up a tier, with the only exception being the Chinese Tech Tree. It will see a completely new light tank at Tier IX: the Type 62C.
Hitting the battlefield at Tier X will be five completely new light tanks: the XM551 Sheridan (U. S. A.), T-100 (U.S.S.R.), Spz. 57 (Germany), WZ-132-1 (China) and AMX 13 105 (France). Here’s a quick look at them:
Tier X light tanks will sport the class’ trademark compact size and outperform their brethren at Tiers VIII–IX thanks to unparalleled mobility, a better view range, bigger HP pool, greater penetration power and damage per hit. When approaching their balancing, our goal was to give each combat parameters that would facilitate classic light tank gameplay, while bringing increased versatility to the table.
Rebalanced light tanks, including the new Tier X are currently being tested in the Sandbox. Apply if you’d like to some hands-on time and help us refine them leading up to the release.
You can apply for Sandbox HERE
Sandbox Second Iteration Results
We hit the ground running this January with the second iteration of Sandbox. We’d like to offer a huge thank you on behalf of the entire World of Tanks team to everyone who has joined and contributed their thoughts! The feedback that we received was extremely helpful in determining what worked and why, as well as what didn’t, and how we can improve on it. Here’s a quick rundown on results.
Phase 1. Changes to accuracy, damage falloff, and alpha damage
The revised shot distribution within the aiming circle reduced the number of “unbelievable” shots. However, the accuracy with full aim went down as well, which is anything but what we wanted. So, we’re heading back to the drawing board with this one.
The testing of damage falloff brought a larger issue to the forefront. The results show that it won’t work the way we want it to (i.e., encourage heavies to shorten the combat distance), unless we significantly rebalance HEAT shells. It’s a major decision that would affect the overall gameplay and most likely come with balance tweaks to other shell types as well. We will return to it after thorough calculations and modeling, while the current changes won’t make it into the game.
As for the alpha damage revision, we are still comparing player behaviour on all vehicles that went through changes. It will take some more time to draw final conclusions. From what we see now, scaling 120 mm gun damage to the damage rating of 122 mm guns resonated with testers and showed good results. We’ll return to further refining it after analyzing all the data. The changes to high-caliber gun damage per shot still require a bit of work.
Phases 2–3. Comprehensive changes to artillery
Progress with arty is going well. The feedback and stats we collected on Tier X vehicles showed that the suggested changes created better gameplay dynamics, and added to the fun. So, we expanded the vehicle pool, adding Tier VIII and IX tanks to the mix. In the coming weeks, the team will be watching closely, monitoring your feedback and reviewing logs of data to see how recent adjustments affect their gameplay, and make further tweaks (if necessary).
Head over to the Sandbox Blog for a detailed report and a lowdown on Phase 3:
Head over to the Sandbox Blog for a detailed report and a lowdown on Phase 3:
New mode in development—Ranked Battles
For quite some time, you guys have wanted an arena where you can truly test your mettle, facing off against players who are in a similar standing. Today, we’ve got a message for you: Ranked Battles is on the horizon so you’d better be polishing your skills.
Exclusive to Tier X vehicles and divided in seasons, Ranked Battles will let you prove that you’re the best of the best in 15-vs-15 combat. The more successful you are in battle, the higher your standing will be in a special Ranked Battles ladder. And we aren’t talking just victory; it’s going to be more about your contribution to the battle outcome. If you put in a great performance, yet your team loses a match, you move up the ranks anyway. So, climbing the ladder is all on you! And as you progress, the competition goes up as well. Yes, it depends directly on your position in the ladder as the matchmaking will pit players against those of a similar rank in a special Random Battles queue. If that’s not enough, a stellar performance in battle and during a season will net you some exciting rewards.
Unlike everything else we mentioned in this article, Ranked Battles is still in the early stages of development. We hope the notable highlights we just shared got you as excited as we are about it. There’ll be a lot more information coming your way when we move closer to rolling it out.
New Graphics
Finally, this year the game will see significant graphical improvements with a number of great new features that we’re excited to bring to you. And as it often is with graphics, we’d rather let you see what’s in store with your own eyes:( We previewed in RSR earlier today )
This year, we are going to overhaul the game’s core, while also enriching it with new gameplay options—the reveals at GDC being a large part of this. We hope you are as excited as the rest of us to dive feet-first into playtesting improvements when they arrive. We’ll continue to keep you updated on specific times and dates as we get closer to testing and everything is ready to head out the door.
So if im reading this right, they are fixing the “trolltoon” problem that weve been asking for years………bout fucking time..
why they wont allow 2 arties tier X and lower tier light tank … or even artas being tier lower …
Any updates to their patented cheating algorithm?
If it is patented you can look it up at the patent office. All valid patents are official.
“The testing of damage falloff brought a larger issue to the forefront. The results show that it won’t work the way we want it to (i.e., encourage heavies to shorten the combat distance), unless we significantly rebalance HEAT shells. It’s a major decision that would affect the overall gameplay and most likely come with balance tweaks to other shell types as well. We will return to it after thorough calculations and modeling, while the current changes won’t make it into the game.”
No Sh*t Sherlock…Who could ever have guessed that is the case….
Maybe they need actual data to apply changes…
It may seem obvious but you never know how russians work… ono
Ideally that’s how any project should work, if you cannot create a viable prototype then you can’t make a change. The prototype seems simple to us because we are not the designers.
good old for the record … here is just copy of WG and some YT videos I have in sub…
Well, if they manage to actually implement all this, I’ll be very impressed. This looks great.
“However, the accuracy with full aim went down as well, which is anything but what we wanted.” That’s exactly what I said when they first announced it. Glad to see they realized the same thing.
I would love these ranked battles even through I am mister average but i wont play them if I lose as much credits as in random battles
I don’t think the NA servers have the population for this to work…
I doubt we’ll get the structured .3/5/7 or the 5/10 matches with perfectly balanced TDs, lights, and arty, but I do think that this can guarantee many more battles where you’re capable of achieving something and increase the chance that battle will be balanced. US West will struggle for certain, but US East should benefit from the changes.
Realy dont understand why they dont just nerf the penetration of high pen guns and rework premium rounds… then you wouldnt need to unhistorically alter armour
Because people wouldn’t spend the same huge amounts of money on prem’ accounts and tanks so they can “2” for skill.
wouldn’t know that for sure until it’s tested
Perhaps an alternate solution is to do less damage with premium rounds or high penetration rounds. Smaller, thinner round = less damage. War thunder has a questionable working solution to this. In this way you still have a credit sink and improved heavy tanks at the same time.
“Eliminate frustrating scenarios where vehicles in the middle and at the bottom of the list are outnumbered by those at the top”
The logic fails since the enemy’s middle and bottom vehicles will be out numbered also based on vehicle teiring only. The problem isn’t tied to how many of which tier or even the number of heavies, tds, etc on each side. I have seen matches where the teams matched up fairly evenly tank make up wise and one side lost 15 – 1/2/3/etc because the loosing team had far more newer players and players that haven’t learned the basics after 5,000 battles. You want to really have balanced MM, you have to add tiering of players based on their rating or something stat wise.
If they did that seth, then players would never improve; silly ones who go suicide instantly would always meet other ones who do the same, and they would think it means they are good players since it would be the norm.
Meanwhile, the good players would have insanely difficult games since everyone else would be exactly as good as them, and battles would result in draws far more often since people would not want to go and take the hit they know is waiting for them etc.
Additionally, skill based MM would make the waiting time much longer than usual if it was followed to the letter, and if lee-way was given it would be more like it already is but with the still longer wait times to get into frustrating slow camp fests all the time full of ”just as good as you” players.
What they propose here is the best solution without slowing down MM wait times, and it will still help newbies since they won’t get games where they can’t do anything and get stomped by top tier heavies, the 3-man platoon of seal clubbers on the enemy team with no opposing platoon on ours, the 10 tier 6 tanks versus the 4 on ours, etc.
TL;DR skill based match making has many flaws if you reason it out enough.
“silly ones who go suicide instantly would always meet other ones who do the same, and they would think it means they are good players since it would be the norm.
Meanwhile, the good players would have insanely difficult games since everyone else would be exactly as good as them, and battles would result in draws far more often since people would not want to go and take the hit they know is waiting for them etc.”
Not true…..
Idiots who suicide continue to suicide in high tier games too, they just wont learn. Every one sees that in random battles all the time, only way they gonna learn is that they play in platoon or in team with better players. I see every single day too many 10 tier noobs who really dont know what they should do with their tanks.
And for those good players…..You think they will sit on base all game because no one wants to take hit???really???
I dont know where u play but these unicums know WHEN to sacrifise tank, if they play together they KNOW what others in team is thinking and support them. Go play team battles and when u have mixed unicum team against u try to get that draw…..you dont…because they play, they hunt you until you are spotted, they sacrifice their tanks if it is necessary for win, they camp if you are fool enough to try to hunt them.
And if unicums has to play with idiots, how they can get better, if they play against each other they might even learn some new tricks..
Not to forget that unicums wouldn’t be unicums anymore with skill mm,because they would constantly have to fight players of the same skill level, that they just couldn’t dominate the same way as they can do now.
Remember, the reason they are unicums is, that they are simply way better than the vast majority of their opponents.
Skill MM -as an Idea- would be nowhere as good as many people tend to believe
Skill based matchmaking works in almost any competitive sport.
Name any sport and you wont find the top players playing against noobs or morons.
Why not have random match making to players of every skill level and only reshuffle the balance when games have a predicted chance to win/lose of 60%/40%. Rush games will still be there but they would be a great deal rarer. Players of every skill level still have a good chance of seeing one another but you’d never have a pure team of unicums vs a pure team of tomatoes is all.
You put a +/- 1 tier in the player rating/skill/etc MM. That improve the chances of getting a battle over only playing against players with the same skills tier.
Apparently Seth has not faced MM of 13x IS v 13x IS + two random tier 5 tanks on each team …
No I haven’t, but even if you have a majority of tomatoes on one team playing even average players in the same tanks on the other team who do you think will win most likely? The team with the more skilled players, regardless of the number of battles they have fought. I have seen players with 10k+ battles that were tomatoes play against average players with only 1k battles in the same tanks and the tomatoes lost.
Apparently you haven’t seen any of these tomato teams win the better team due to the fact that the latter throws away their victory just because of overconfidence…
FUCK OF WITH SKILL MM!!!!!!!!!!
Still waiting on fv215b replacement. WG’s promises are empty always.
Relax Frances
I’m just thinking about all the missions you have to kill higher tier vehicles or set fire to them, limiting them to only do 1 tier makes it really really really hard to complete missions like Incinerator…
This would be a welcome addition for Warships too.
Well, at least we have seen examples of WoT and WoWs trading good ideas before, so it’s not impossible that they may well improve the MM there too.
Artillery with the ability to hit a point target remotely is complete fiction. Artillery is an anti-infantry weapon, not anti-armor. So why is it in a game that consists exclusively of armored vehicles? It either should be eliminated or allow players to choose whether they want to be in battles with artillery. Ask any person who served in an artillery unit and they will agree – it is only luck that results in an artillery shell taking out a tank in anything but a desperate point blank shot. Artillery ruins what would otherwise be an enjoyable game.
Hey, i would like to see ranked battles or a permanent ingame list for plaqyer from tier 6 to 10.
I know that stats arent much welcome by most player, but i dont want to browse 100’s of websites, just to see where and how i improve myself or not.
Actually u see some medals and thats it more or less.
Why not tell us much more?
…not sure if these all gonna work right, but – at least its gonna change the gameplay quite a bit, so lets hope for the best 😉
for me it sounds kind of stupid, 2 top tier E75’s can rape everything, T9 is too strong for T7, T8 is too strong for T6, cmon, no tanks at t6 can damage Defender without gold or HE….. but I get it, they need to force the in-game economy so they earn more money, buy premium or go fuck your self….. most interesting battles are +-1 MM where everyone is a threat to everyone and there is less chance you get to bully someone or get bullied by something you can’t even scratch….
But you have to make idiots feel good and have some fun in order to make them pay you money so let them have +-2 so they can 2-shot everything with is-3 or any stalinium tank
I’ve been playing this game for around 5000 hours so far and I really do not like where is this going right now, hoping for the better but it’s been a while since wg did such thing
Currently you can have tanks with diferent MM spread in platoon as the players can compensate eg IS-6, 112, Tiger But with the new system of the Tiger player didnt have a limited MM tank he would have to take a regular teir8 breaking the limited MM of the other 2 ! and what if some one platoons with a Pz.Kpfw. II Luchs this will force 3 tier 4s potentialy into tier7.
There are many tanks with non standard MM !! : Wz-111, 112 Super P , IS-6, Panther M7 .. T-127, Valentine II at lest players can be sensible now.
Also the Tier spread is still missing tin the garage making forming balanced platoons difficult.
Single tier MM hapens currently ans is a good thing, this new system will actual reduce this !! this , Sinlge tier should be given more importance !
Sorry, did I miss something? Single tier MM happens as rarely as good ideas by WG atm. I think 1 in 50 battles or so is single tier and with the new MM it can still happen and we have no clue how often
Interesting changes, looks pretty good, especially the one-tier platoon ruling.
FINALLY some kind of skill-MM with these ranked battles. lets hope the devs grow some more brain and dont just let them happen season-wise and open them to all tiers. im tired of grinding tanks in random with all these stupid below 2k wn8 retards…
Sorry I’m inclined to disagree. It should all be limited to Tier 10 tanks only ( like they said), where there will be no stock tanks or people grinding tanks they have no idea how to play yet.
it balances the game-play by leveling the field for everyone. (taking a stock tier 10 would just be a bad idea just to cover this)
think again. the leveling happens within the “normal” MM. especially with the new 3-5-7 rule you can go into battle with a stock tier 6 at bottom and still have the chance to do some serious dmg. even more when you play an average 1k wn8 and play with and against others at that skill-level.
in the “normal” random you dont just face better tanks (i.e. not-stock) you have to face much better players. with maybe much worse teammates.
and thats why grinding tanks in random is no fun. its not the tank that makes it uncomfotable for you, its the spread of skill.
by the way: the argument that unicums are only unicums because they “sealclub” not-so-strong players is invalid. every sport has its leagues. usian bolt would still be the fastest, no matter if you let him run against your grandma or other top-runners. but letting him run against your grandma over and over again would be boring. you know who wins before they start.
thats why we NEED SKILL-MM. to make battles less boring and frustrating for those who play like usian bolt and those who play like your grandma.
Fare enough, I hear you, but i think that wouldn’t work well with server populations and would make getting to battles way too long if this were to apply to every tier.
lests do the math. super-unicum means you are the top 1%.
serverpopulation in europe is between 60k and 100k players during the day. in russia its much more, us and sea less.
60k players = 600 super-unicums
600 players = 40 teams / 20 battles
take into account that these extremly good players are the most active. there are probably more than 600 super-unicums online when the serverpopulation is arround 60k.
and there is still the option to soften the rules if there are not enough players online.
my strong guess is, devs KNOW this, but dont want to lower the frustration for players. because frustrated players are much more likely to by premium.
Love it all.
fixed alot of issues and problems, we as community have been raising.
And taking ranked battles from League of Legends is probably a great idea. I cant wait to see how it works out.
It wont work, LoL has a lot of players online everytime and their queue can take from 45 sec to 3 min, just imagine how long will take to créate a match with 1/50 of the players, and considering different leagues plus more players per side…. 50 min of queue maybe?
the LoL-matchmaker takes your rank, your champion, game mode, your choosen map and a few other things into account. in WoT its just tier and class. even if you add 100 ranks, the waiting time wouldnt extend to more than 30 seconds i guess.
and personally i would rather wait 30 seconds and then have 7 to 15 minutes fun than dont wait and be frustrated with a 5 minute15-1/2/3.
The “fail-platoon”-example was a bit exaggerated. Sure, you often have the compulsory Maus+Pz1C-Platoon, but the most platoons have a +/- 1 MM. I f.eks., am currently grinding my Tier 9 american Arty. All my friends have only Tier 10 arties and we usually play arty together. So our platooning of 2 T10 Arty+ 1 T9 Arty wouldn’t be possibly anymore. Same goes on for other classes. Scout+higher arty is always a good combination, but not possible with the new MM-mechanics. I hope they give this a further look.
It seems as if finally some sane persons took over at WG development division.
Most of the improvement implemented do make sense and are not just a sick fantasy of some fat troll not playing his own game.
GG WG
i hope they dont follow their “reduce income every patch” strategy that we seen from 8.0 and upwards.